The Four Travelers

Note: I’ve made additions to this blog post, based on a recent conversation with my mother.  I’ve put her comments in red.  There’s also one comment about Joan by Anisa; it’s in blue below.

I’m trying to get ideas of what the personalities were of the four travelers in 1949, and I’m getting hints from the accounts of different people.  Here’s what I have so far, let me know if you have anything to add.

What is clear is that all four were adventurous, independent women, who enjoyed a challenge.

It is also clear that they were at once typical and atypical tourists of the time.  Not surprisingly, they shared the dominant profile of tourists of the time as being upper class or wealthy middle class.  As Christopher Endy succinctly puts it, “the wealthiest 33 percent of the United States, those with family incomes over $5,000 a year, accounted for almost two-thirds of France’s American guests” in the late 1940’s.  And American tourists do seem to have dominated the tourist scene, particularly starting around 1950.  But the four women clearly did not fit typical expectations.  As my mother mentioned, several Europeans were surprised (in a positive way) to find four travelers from three different continents traveling together before 1950 (there is an anecdote about this in a post that I will add later).  And simply having four women traveling alone together was unusual.  Most tourists were either men, women with husbands, or people in tour groups.  This lively, attractive, heterogeneous group of women must have attracted a lot of attention–most of it, I gather, positive.

Carmen de Zaldo:  the most charming one of the group.  Even though she was the oldest one by far–in her early 40’s, it was to her that men paid attention, including marriage proposals.  A great conversationalist, she also had the marvelous talent of appearing to understand, and even respond to, her interlocuters, even when she had no idea what they were saying.  In Germany, she told me, she kept her own by simply responding “schön” to everything, although Mami says that she knew other German words as well, namely “rechts,” “links,” and “geradeaus”  (left, right, straight ahead).  I probably don’t need to add that she was the driver of the group.  Quite intrepid given that my grandfather Charlie had only allowed her to start driving late (she married him when she was, I think, 16), and then she was only allowed to drive to the Havana Country Club and back.  Carmen also loved doing sneaking past rules–sneaking items for which she should pay duty past customs.

Two of my favorite stories about her have to do with contraband.  At one point, Daddy came to visit Mami in Europe, and as he was departing Carmen stuck some brussels lace into Robbie’s (as she called him) pockets to sneak past Customs.  My father was perhaps the most law-abiding citizen I have ever met, but this was, after all his future mother-in-law, so he had to stay in her good graces.  With a slight blush, he accepted the task and probably squirmed through the whole transatlantic flight until he got safely past Customs in the States.  The other was about a trip she took with Abuelito (her second husband–Mario) to Spain.  She loved their sausages and was wondering how to sneak one into the United States.  Fortunately they travelled with Mario’s golf bag, so she simply put the enormous and long sausage in the golf bag and pretended it was a golf club by covering it with a gold club cover.

And Carmen adored Anisa: “Tengo que escribirle al papá de esta niña ye decirle que encatadora es su hija.”  (I have to write to this young woman’s Dad and tell him how wonderful and enchanting his daughter is.)

Always nervous about the possibility that one of the travelers might get typhoid from drinking the water.  She had lost a sister–who died before she was born–to typhoid.

 

Anisa Saadoun: the one who always made the best of a problematic situation. La risa de Anisa–una risa que nunca he vuelto a oír.  (Anisa’s laugh–I’ve never heard a laugh quite like it.)  Once she laughed, we all started laughing too.

And Anissa always had the best memory.

She maintained, with difficulty, the dietary restrictions of her religion, despite going through Germany, whose main food seems to have been, besides potatoes, pork sausage.

 

Maria Teresa de Zaldo: Always interested in the personalities, quirks, and backgrounds of the different people she met.  The linguist. Maintained her religious observance throughout.

 

Joan Farwell: The mischievous one.  The assertive one.  Always watching her waist. She was very complexed about having to wear those very large glasses.  She was very near-sighted, but even so, she never missed anything.

Joan was one of the most popular girls at Vassar because she was so funny and had such a way of telling stories. She had such a sense of humor and an ability to imitate any accent.  En Vassar College imitaba a todo el mundo.  (At Vassar College she imitated everyone.)

Joan could never understand Anisa’s decision not to drink alcohol; she always felt that Anisa should make an exception on special occasions, like her birthday.  Mamá (Carmen) and I were never able to help Joan understand that Anisa’s decision was a religious one. Cambiarle una idea a Joan era dificilisimo.  (Getting Joan to change her mind was a very difficult task.)

Although she loved to make fun of other people, Joan was a very, very sensitive person.

Joan hated cheese, especially the smell of strong cheese; cheese, of course, was omnipresent in Europe, especially in France and Germany.

It was quite a thing Joan with her insistence on dieting.

Anisa’s added comment: Joan was always on a diet; at lunch she would just order clear soup.

 

 


 

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