Sunday Drive: Spearfish, South Dakota - 1953

The caption on this slide in Dad's handwriting reads "at Florence's Spearfish S.Dak. 53" so have all the information we need.

[From my personal collection]

Florence Christine Weisman (1900-1985) married Mother's older brother Gilbert Grenfell (1901-1928) in 1924 and the couple had a son Milton (1925-2003) and a daughter Joyce who died as an infant in 1926.

[From my personal collection]

Gilbert was killed in 1928 when the tractor he was driving overturned.

Florence became the wife of Ralph B. Courtney (1903-1956) in 1932 becoming the stepmother to his two children by his first wife.

She's buried in Little Dane Cemetery, Saint Onge, Lawrence County, South Dakota along with both of her husbands, her son and his wife, and her stepson.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Christmas at Agua Caliente - 1952

When the trailer was new...

[From my personal collection]

I don't remember this awning at all--by next year it had been replaced with a red one.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Merchants Beach - 1964

I've already shared photos of Merchants Beach taken in 1960 in a previous post as well as a picture of our Land Cruiser when it was new. Here they are together in the summer of 1964.

[From my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Winchester Bay, 1952

Every summer vacation where our ultimate goal was Oregon we spent several weeks at a trailer park in Winchester Bay.* These photos from 1952 appear to be taken during our earliest stay there.**

[I have no clue what that dark diagonal line through the image is. From my personal collection.]

[Caption: Boats Winchester Bay taken from cannery. From my personal collection.]

*At this time the park was being run by Stanley and Lena Spooner, the in-laws of the owner Jack Himbaugh. Trying to figure out just how we came to know these people, I think the Curreys probably met the couple initially through their son Lee Spooner, a sailor stationed in San Diego during World War II. Mother and Dad had friends whose sons were in the U.S. Navy who sometimes brought their friends around for a good home cooked meal. I can't imagine any other connection.
**Here's a view of the park taken two years later.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey

Influenced by their experience as trailer owners dating back to the late 1930s, the Curreys were always on the look out for free places to stay. Dad preferred to limit each day's drive to around 300 miles so longer runs like that between Nipomo and the California redwoods north of San Francisco always were a challenge. 

For several years we dry-camped on the grounds of the then largely unrestored Mission Soledad in the Salinas valley. As I recall only the chapel had been rebuilt* and as you can see in the background of this photo, most of what was visible were crumbling adobe walls. The entire site was surrounded by fields of sugar beets and felt very remote.

[From my personal collection]

*According to Mission Soledad's website, the chapel was rebuilt in 1954 so this slide probably dates to 1955 or 1956.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys and Travel Trailer #3 (Promise Partly Kept*)

When he decided the time had come to buy a new, larger travel trailer in 1952, Dad narrowed his options to Airstream and Boles Aero. Being a "nut and bolts" kind of guy, he wanted to tour both factories to see how they were built but he said Airstream wouldn't let him do that and Boles did. 

 [Boles Factory 1952, from my personal collection] 

So we got a 21' Boles Aero with some modifications: installation of a larger Servel refrigerator (that Dad bought and took up to the factory); the bathroom was replaced with more closet space;** and a 50 gallon water tank put in the back underneath the bed. I'm pretty sure Dad bought it through this dealer in Solana Beach.

[Tuesday, June 24, 1952; Paper: San Diego Union (San Diego, California) Page: 26  

This entire product and/or portions thereof are copyrighted by NewsBank and/or the American Antiquarian Society. 2004.

Source: GenealogyBank.com]

[Servel Ad from Better Homes & Gardens, February 1950, ebay seller Balovel]

I haven't been able to find a photo of the interior of our trailer, but the kitchen layout (including Servel refer) was the same as this one, although our wood paneling was much lighter in color (matching the color of the screen doors). We almost never used the heater (far left, just inside the front door).

[Kitchen of 1953 Boles Aero Ensenada, Source: Boles Aero Pinterest Board by Opuntia Potwell]

Note: On our travels I was allowed to take toys and games that fit in the second drawer on the right. A few books could be fitted into narrow cupboards under the table at the front of the trailer.

By our 1953 trip to South Dakota with the new trailer, the Boles had acquired a canvas awning (red of course, to match the truck). The wagon wheels were destined to grace our rail fence in Encanto.

[Grenfell Ranch, Black Hills of South Dakota, 1953 from my personal collection 

 

[Walt & Alta Shell's Ranch, Black Hills of South Dakota, 1953, from my personal collection]

[Camp near Prescott on Way Home 1953, from my personal collection]

Next summer we traveled to Oregon where we stayed (among other places) at a cherry orchard owned by friends on a hill near Eugene and in Winchester Bay at what is now Fishermans RV Park.

[Trailor at Redingers 1954, Back Door, from my personal collection]

[Winchester Bay Fisherman's Trailer Court, 1954, from my personal collection]

*I'll describe last week's photos later.
**We used a portable chemical toilet instead.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Curreys and Travel Trailer #3

These two photos will have to serve as my Sunday Drive post for today. I promise to search out more images of the 1952 Boles Aero (and explain these two) next week.

[Window Rock, 1953, from my personal collection]

[Agua Caliente County Park, Easter 1954, from my personal collection]

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey

Here it is, our brand-new 1961-62 Toyota Land Cruiser* sitting proudly in the front yard of the Currey's desert house in Ocotillo. This is the vehicle I first learned to drive, off-road in the Imperial Valley, and it was a beast! You just knew you could go anywhere with it.**

[From my personal collection]

Dad bought it from John A. Rose's Toyota dealership in Mission Valley and he loved how well-built it was. (He enjoyed pointing out to people how every cotter pin--and other loose part--had its own little chain attaching it to the car so it wouldn't get lost if it fell out on a rough patch of road.) Of course he chose a red one.

*I don't remember exactly what year, but my guess is based on the style of the rear view mirror, the lack of the tiny rear corner windows added in later years and the fact that the yellow/black California license plate was changed to black/yellow the next year. The car was so new that its tags hadn't arrived from the DMV yet.
**One summer we even used it to pull our 21-foot Boles Aero trailer to Oregon and back. I'll have to hunt out a picture of that.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.