This photo shows Dick seated between two of his high school friends, Jim Ervin and Jim Arnold.
Dick and Jim sailed to Alaska aboard the S.S. George Washington. Above are two pages from the ship’s farewell dinner menu.
Above is a scan of one of Dick’s letters. This and other letters are transcribed below.
Monday Morning Letter
Monday morning
Dear Aunt & Unc,
Well I’m a full fledged sailor now. I really went through the test last night. We rolled & rolled for about 4 hrs and didn’t even think about getting sick. Two of those 4 hrs I was trying to dance and we managed fairly well. There are about 3 nice girls on board and we are having a lot of fun with them. One of them is from F.J.C. but I didn’t know her. Jim knew her, however. One of the others is from Tacoma, Wash. I danced with her most of the time. The other one is from New York City.
They are really feeding us like kings around here. Yesterday we had Swiss steak, and all the trimmings for lunch and last night I had white meat of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, lettuce and tomato salad, peach pie, and milk. This morning I had grapefruit juice, breakfast cereal, 3 hot cakes, ham, and coffee. They don’t care how much you eat and you have lots of choices. This is really a vacation.
I am still sorry I couldn’t come back to see you because I still know I’d rather have done that. The scenery up here is really beautiful and I am taking lots of pictures. I’ll send you a copy of all of them when I get home. I don’t know exactly where to tell you to write but we won’t be back to Seattle before the 9th, so you can write me there if you have time.
We just passed a little village with a beautiful waterfall near it.
All my love
Dick
Tuesday Noon Letter
Tuesday noon
Dear Aunt & Unc
This is really the life – no work – no worry – no strain. You ought to try it sometime. We really had a wonderful trip. Every minute was so much fun. We’ve been down at the beach since Sat. eve when I had a date with Kay. Arnold has been down here some of the time with us. We are all going to the mountains Wed. and stay until the day after Labor Day. I bought you guys a little something from Alaska that I think you’ll enjoy, especially Unc. Mom will send it when they go home.
Yesterday was a swell day down here, with the sun out all day. Today the sun isn’t out good at all. I sure did appreciate the $10 but you sure shouldn’t have done it. You do too much for me anyway. There is still something I want from you that you haven’t done and that is for you to move out here. There’s no reason in the world why you can’t. But there seems to be no use in asking any more, you never do anything about it.
Well take it easy anyway and I’ll be seeing you on my way back to North Carolina. Ha!
All my love
Dick
Friday Afternoon Letter
Friday afternoon
Dear Aunt & Unc
Alaska is really wonderful, you will just have to go there. We really had loads of fun & met lots of swell people. One of them was a Post Office employee at Muskatine, Iowa. He really was a sweet guy. We got back to Seattle on Tues. morning at 6:00 a.m. They woke us all up at 5:15. We were used to sleeping until noon, so that was kind of hard on us.
I didn’t know a person could lead as lazy a life as we are, but we sure are doing it. We went right down to Puyallup and stayed with the Williams’ until yesterday. They are really swell folks. They took us to Tacoma one night for dinner and to Seattle the next night. We are now staying here with Jim’s aunt at Salem. We will probably be here until Monday.
Please write to me at the Coles in Berkeley – 2802 College St. We will probably get there about the 22nd. We are going to Yosemite via Reno, first. If we have enough money left we are going to fly home from Berkeley. Don’t tell Mom this because we want to surprise them. One of Jim’s cousin’s friends took us up for an airplane ride yesterday afternoon. We flew around Salem at 145 mph and we went around the whole countryside. It was really a lot of fun.
I only got one letter from you at Seattle and I’ve written you more than that. Joan even wrote me more than that. Maybe they didn’t come through. I sure want to hear from you at Berkeley though.
Everything is going all right with both of us and we still have plenty of money. I’ve gained 8 lbs since I left home. I’ve really been eating a lot. I’ll write again soon.
All my love
Dick
The Learning Years, by Dick Votaw (part 4)
(part 1) (part 2) (part 3)
The summer of 1948 I quit work at the post office and decided to have some fun with all the money I had been saving. I had my first serious girl friend at that time (Joan Folger, the daughter of our pastor), played softball for the church team, and took a cruise to Alaska with my best buddy, Jim Ervin. Joan was a very nice girl and fun to be with, but she and her family left for North Carolina late that summer for a new pastorate so that was the end of that romance.
Jim and I decided that for our vacation we wanted to travel on all possible forms of transportation before we returned home. From Los Angeles we took the Greyhound bus to Seattle (with crying babies and all), boarded our ship and took the inside passage to Alaska. What an adventure for a couple of 20 year old kids. Jim had earned and saved his money from the post office also. Our ports of call were Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, and Skagway, and then back to Seattle. There was a teamster strike happening at the time and our trip expanded to one extra day as we stood still at one port. This was great as far as we were concerned. From Skagway we took the narrow gauge railway to Whitehorse in the Yukon territory of Canada. This was my first experience in eating Moose. As I recall, I thought it was delicious. On the same ship there happened to be a trio of young female school teachers that were probably 3 to 4 years older. Needless to say there was much innocent flirting going on and we enjoyed each other’s company. Why they liked us is beyond me.
After returning to Seattle we got another Greyhound and headed for Nevada. I thought it best to go to Carson City since it is the capitol, and Jim didn’t know the best place to see the sights, so off we went. As we went through Reno we thought we must have made a mistake. How could Carson City be bigger than this? It wasn’t, and were we disappointed. We did get off the bus, visited the museum, and looked around and spent the night. As it turned out we did have a good time, but were glad to get another bus and head for San Francisco. Upon arriving in San Francisco we decided to complete our mission by flying home. We called our parents and told them where and when to pick us up at the airport. They were somewhat surprised at our choice of transportation as they probably thought we must be out of money by now. We had a good flight home and never forgot what a great trip we had just had.
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