Traveling Grandparents

In the 1950s both my mom's parents and my dad's parents began to travel. I'm glad they did, because they set a great example that I've always been happy to follow.

By Dave

May 7, 2021

Grandpa (Herb Martin) had a heart attack in the mid-1950s. That event caused a complete change of life for Annie (Mary Martin) and Grandpa. Grandpa quit smoking, and retired from his dental practice in 1957. They sold their home in Pomona and bought a trailer (which they preferred to call a “coach”). They had their new home extensively customized – it was really very nice – and installed it in a trailer park (I think they called it a “mobile home court”) in Costa Mesa.

That’s when they began their travels. They had traveled before – notably, a trip around the U.S. with Doree, just weeks before she met Dick – but now they got to go a lot more often. Their early trips were in the U.S., towing a travel trailer behind their car. They loved going to Florida and hunting for seashells. In the early 1960s they moved up to cruise ships and finally to freighters, which would take them away for months at a time and sail all over the world. (There are more pictures of these trips in later chapters.)

Grandma and Grandad (Mildred and Harold Votaw) began to travel for the church in 1952. Because of their leadership roles, they served as representatives to various denominational conferences. (The picture at the top of this page shows them in this role.) They also travelled to the Friends mission field in Kotzebue, Alaska, to bring back reports to the California churches and raise more money for the support of that mission. In later years, they traveled all over the world as tourists, until Grandad’s health began to decline in the early 1960s.

I remember many nights sitting on the floor in our living room, watching slides, as my grandparents showed us pictures from their trips. Of course they always brought gifts for all of us from their travels to exotic lands. We still have the slides, and a few of the gifts. Annie and Grandpa took the most pictures, and they were very good photographers. But they did not like to include themselves in the pictures, so we have only a few of them.

Traveling the world was pretty unusual in those days. It was viewed as an exciting adventure, especially if an ocean was crossed. Annie and Grandpa built up quite a reputation, going around to various, um, mobile home courts and retirement homes and showing their pictures. Annie was quite a writer, and she put together scripted talks, complete with jokes, while Grandpa handled the technology quite skillfully. I attended one or two of these performances, and when I got back from my first trip to Europe at the age of 15 they gave me a chance to show my slides to one of their audiences. I assured Annie that I had put several “old folks jokes” in my script, which she found amusing.

A trip to Carmel, California, was an annual event for my parents and Grandma and Grandad. They always stayed in the same place – these little white cottages. Dad and Grandad were there on business; they had annual “shook meetings” that they had to attend in San Francisco. Sometimes Mom and Dad would bring us kids along, and we had lots of fun in Carmel, Monterey, and the surrounding areas.

This picture was taken to celebrate Herb’s retirement from dental practice at the age of 55. He looks pretty healthy!

Neither of my grandmothers liked to have her picture taken. But Grandpa apparently talked Annie into having this one taken with some beautiful dogwood flowers, on one of their early trips together. 

Grandad and Grandma pose with one of the Alaska natives who attended the Friends Church in Kotzebue. It was the first Friends church established north of the Arctic Circle. The Alaska mission was supported by the California Friends, and my grandparents traveled from church to church all over California to raise support for the work there.

Mildred poses with a native Alaskan girl. Grandma loved making friends with people wherever she went.

In those days it was quite unusual (and pretty special) to cross the Arctic Circle. Both Harold and Mildred received – and saved – these huge “certificates” proving that they had been there and done that.

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