9000 Miles in a Knight: The 1930 Travel Journal of Pearl Maybelle Hugunin Machenry Transcribed and Compiled by Nancy Pearl Cullen Trask Lang

By Pearl Hugunin Machenry, Nancy Pearl Lang and Magdalena Bassett

9000 Miles In A Knight relates the experience of Pearl MacHenry on her family's road trip across America in 1930. Pearl, her husband Rev. Ward MacHenry, and their four youngest children, ages 14 to 20, set off from Seattle, Washington, on May 18th in their Willys-Knight touring car.

No heat, no radio, bad tires, 4000 miles of unpaved roads.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Lawnchair Books
• Release date: Apr 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9780692767993

Book preview

9,000 MILES IN A KNIGHT

The 1930 Travel Journal of

Pearl Maybelle Hugunin MacHenry

Transcribed and compiled by Nancy Pearl Cullen Trask Lang

9,000 MILES IN A KNIGHT

By Pearl MacHenry and Nancy Lang

Copyright ©2013 by Nancy Lang.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without written permission from the publisher.

All photos, postcards and other memorabilia from MacHenry Family Collection except as otherwise noted.

To contact the Publisher, please write to:

Nancy Lang

email: [e-mail]

First Edition

ISBN-13: 978-1494257651

ISBN-10: 1494257653

ISBN : 978-0692767993 (e book)

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Book and Cover Design: Magdalena Bassett, www.bassettstudio.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My husband, Larry Lang, is my greatest asset in finishing this adventure. First, he carefully scanned my grandmother’s journal, her scrapbook, and all the old photos. Second, he found and purchased a 1930 U.S. Road Atlas so we could trace the travels covered in Pearl’s Journal, then he scanned each page so it would be usable in publishing this book. He proof read and gently suggested changes, he encouraged me each step of the way; he helped to search and identify photos that were unidentified. Without his steady presence and thoughtful way I would still be wondering should I or shouldn’t I.

I thank him from the bottom of my heart and will be forever grateful that he’s in my life; my partner, my soul mate, my love.

I’m thankful for my daughter, Sabrina Trask’s help. Whenever I want an expert creative writer’s advice I contact Sabrina and, even with her busy working mom/part-time student seeking Masters degree schedule, she still takes the time to suggest and advise me on my writing style and content clarity and, she does so thoughtfully and with encouragement. I’m a very lucky mom.

I would be remiss if I did not thank Magdalena Bassett, the book and cover designer. When we first sat down to discuss my dream, she listened, she looked over the old photos and my draft of the story. She immediately recognized my desire to share my grandmother’s incredible journal. With her creative talent and technical skill, Magdalena was able to turn everything in my dream into a work of art; for that I’m truly thankful.

—NPL

INTRODUCTION

For more than fifty years family tales told of a Travel Journal written by my grandmother, Pearl Maybelle Hugunin MacHenry, but somehow it was stored away and remained unseen. In 1999 I visited my uncle Paul and discovered that he had the 3 ½ x 5 ½ black leather journal and the 9 x 12 scrapbook! We sat and looked over my grandmother’s 1930 Travel Journal and Scrapbook filled with old photos and vintage postcards. Together we took our time looking over images from long ago, me encouraging him to recollect Who is that?, What kind of car is that?, and, he enjoying the memories and time spent sharing his stories with his niece. Uncle Paul did not have children so, fortunately, he gave me these family treasures; I’m so thankful he did.

In reading this journal I found that, on Sunday, 18 May 1930 Pearl Hugunin MacHenry, her husband Rev Ward Worthington MacHenry, Pastor of the Woodland Park Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington, and their four younger children, Esther Bradway (my mother), Miriam Anna, Dick (Ward Richard) and Paul Hugunin MacHenry got in their Willys-Knight touring car, and started their great, cross country, road trip.

The purpose for the trip was to attend a six-day Presbyterian General Assembly in Cincinnati, Ohio. They did that and so much more, taking side trips to visit relatives and friends in Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ontario, Canada, and Minnesota. They visited: National Parks and historical places, watched street demonstrations gathering to honor Richard E. Byrd upon his return from his Antarctic Expedition, where they also got hit by a chauffeur driven Lincoln, and witnessed Movie-Tone camera crews preparing for the phase–one opening of Mount Rushmore.

In writing her Travel Journal, Pearl wrote about not only the places they saw, the things they did and the people they visited but, in great detail, the costs of the full trip. They stayed with family when they could and, over 26 nights, paid $65.50 for camping at auto camps or cabins, average cost per night $2.50. Examples of feeding their family of six: breakfast in Grafton, West Virginia, $1.26; lunch in Dearborn, Michigan, $1.95; and lunch in Yellowstone National Park, $3.30. They paid 14¢ per gallon for gas in New Jersey.

From their Seattle home at 2201 W. 85th St. they drove about 9,000 miles across the United States, touching twenty-two states and Canada, and back to Seattle, Washington; all the while fixing flat tires, bouncing on rutty old roads, sliding on muddy country roads, freezing while crossing deserts and high mountain passes, being terrified on narrow, windy roads with high drop-offs. Of the 9000 miles they travelled, almost 4000 miles were on gravel or dirt roads!

I never knew my grandmother Pearl: she died 17 June 1935, six years before I was born and just five years after their great adventure. My mother told me that, on her death bed, Pearl asked her to name any daughter she might have after her; my mother kept her promise. I am Pearl’s only granddaughter among five grandchildren.

As I read her words over and over, and mentally try to trace her journey I have come to know the woman. A woman with a deep religious faith mixed with adventure, humor, compassion; a woman with a driving curiosity and appreciation for nature, literature and history; a woman who, after 27 years of marriage was deeply in love with her husband. Pearl recognized the free spirits of her children and, in her writing, openly expressed her passions for life, her surroundings and her family.

Through her writing my grandmother Pearl has encouraged me, beyond a doubt, to explore our family history with clues offered throughout her journal. Her name dropping stirred me to research my connection to the persons she named; this opened up the fact of many family stories and new family members with whom I’m related. With her help I’ve met several cousins previously unknown to me, in Pennsylvania: Jeanne LeFevre Minshall from the MacHenry side; Arizona: Marlene Dixon Armentrout and Janice Dixon Howe from the Goodwin side; Massachusetts: Peter Hugunin from the Huguenin/Hugunin side; Texas: Cecily Cone Kelly from the Hugunin side; Georgia: Julius Abram Huguenin from the Huguenin side; and within 70 miles of my home in Washington: Ernest Davidson from the Hugunin side, and Elizabeth Isabella Voigt Quail from the Goodwin side.

In her journal Pearl talks about wanting to become a member of Daughters of American Revolution (DAR). She didn’t. Nor did her three daughters, but, with my grandmother Pearl’s