Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos #essentialsofrec #recovery #Lois #AA

By Lois Wilson

PART XI

1973 NOTE

Upon our return from Holyoke, Frank was so pleased with Bill’s report on the American Writing Paper Co. That he gave Bill a regular weekly salary of $50, as well as options on stock. This permitted us to feel secure enough financially to buy a second-hand car, in which it would be much easier to make the extended trips for Bill’s work.

So in early October we left Brooklyn for Vermont and parts north, in our new-to-us 1924 Dodge, for which we paid $250.



Hotel Frontenac, Quebec City, Que.

Sun., Oct. 10, 1926

Mother Wilson and Dr. Strobel have sold their houseboat and are now living in New York but they came up to her father’s home in East Dorset, Vt., to see the autumn foliage. As they had never been in my family’s old house in Manchester, I promised to show them through the dwelling on Wednesday, the day we were leaving. It so delayed us that we were unable to reach Aunt Lilian’s camp in northern Vermont that night.

About thirty miles south of Keysville, we tried out our new “Pullman” sleeping arrangements in the Dodge, which all worked well. The next day we had a good visit with Aunt Lilian and Shirley, who insisted we stay for lunch at their attractively located camp.

Thrilled at crossing the border into Canada, we spent the next night at a real French tavern in the small town of La Prairie, just this side of Montreal. Traveling in Quebec is terribly expensive; gas is anywhere from 34¢ to 39¢ a gallon, oil 45¢ a quart, cigarettes 55¢ to 90¢ a pack; every few miles there is a toll bridge or an expensive ferry to cross. Montreal is on an island and you can’t leave without spending at least 60¢.

At first, from the border to La Prairie, it was like traveling in the south again. The weather was warm; the farmers lived in log cabins and used mules instead of horses; pigs and sheep, roaming wild, ran across the roads. But the St. Lawrence Valley is more prosperous, with its well-kept farms, painted houses and long, whitewashed barns with red doors and window frames. Many of the houses are charming, but there are a number of hideous, square pillboxes with flat roofs, cheap tin sheathing over all and “fancy” filigree trimming at the cornices. And the churches! Even the smallest town supports a most impressive edifice and church spires beckon the traveler from one town to the next. Wayside crosses and shrines appear every few miles and priests and monks are seen everywhere.

As we crossed the St. Lawrence River from Sorel to Berthier, a real old-world monk with a most kindly, lovable face was aboard the steamer, barefooted except for sandals, and wearing a long brown coarse cloth gown with a hood and a rope girdle, his head shaved except for a crown of hair around the rim of his scalp. He constantly said his beads and read from his prayer book. We have since seen several others like him. Perhaps because it is so unfamiliar, it all seems quaint and interesting.

On the train to Chicoutimi, Que.

Thurs., Oct. 14, 1926

On our way to Quebec City we stopped at Shawinigan in bitter cold to look through the plant of the Aluminum Company of America. Bill had secured permission first by a wire to Pittsburgh headquarters. He found the location stunning and the plant most impressive.

Armed with letters of introduction from Frank and Bill’s Montreal friend, Johnson, we arrived in Quebec on Saturday evening and parked in the tourist camp. Looking around the town on Sunday, we discovered that a big convention of bankers was in progress at the Hotel Frontenac. Because of the confusion, hubbub and postponement of business caused by the convention, accomplishing Bill’s business here has been greatly delayed.

On Monday, Bill had expected to see a man who would give him letters of introduction to officials at the aluminum development on the Saguenay River. He learned the man would not be in his office, but might be found in such and such a room in the Hotel Frontenac. Most of Bill’s day was wasted phoning the room and having the man paged, while I wandered about the city.

The next day wasn’t much better. Although the man was at his office, he was so much the worse for wear that Bill could get nothing out of him--he was, he said, “in a hurry to lunch with Lady so-and-so.” But he did promise Bill to have the letters the next day, which meant putting off our leaving for still another day. On Wednesday the gentleman was in better shape and gave Bill several helpful letters. He apologized for his former condition, saying that “a banker’s convention didn’t happen every day.”

Quebec is a most charming city, and our lengthened stay was certainly no punishment. The Frontenac is situated on a high bluff overlooking Murray Bay, formed by the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Charles Rivers. Mountains with little villages snuggled at their feet rise sharply from the Bay. On the same bluff as the hotel and not very far is the Citadel, an old fort built by the English in 1759, after Wolfe had taken the city from Montcalm. Quebec was a walled town before that, however, and the walls and gates are still standing. The old walled part is built on a side hill, with narrow, twisting alleys, running hither and yon, making the area picturesque and intriguing.

Although sleeping in our car in the tourist camp, we soon felt very much at home at the elegant Frontenac, making it our headquarters, and parking the Dodge in front near the statue of Champlain.

We wonder when and if the convention ever convened, for most of the time it seemed to be a grand Hurrah-boys-let’s-have-another-drink, interspersed with a few visits of local points of interest, a dinner at the Governor General’s mansion and numerous trips to the golf course. Henry Holt, a perennial beau of many Brooklyn girls of my acquaintance, was present for some undetermined reason. “Henery,” as Bill calls him, was rigged out in the very latest cut British clothes, spats and cane. Although he had just made a flying trip up the Saguenay to the aluminum development, he was too busy having luncheon and going riding with Sir William Price, a director of the Aluminum Company of America, to give us information about his findings. It was constantly Sir William this and Sir William that. We ran into several other Brooklyn friends, also.

One evening at a restaurant Bill and I had an amusing close-up of some of the convention crowd, as we watched a few bankers banqueting. One Jewish banker, who drank only one small bottle of beer, was host. His non-Jewish wife, fat, southern and talkative, was champagne drinkative. A man from Nevada with feet three sizes bigger than Bill’s twelves had the coarsest, grossest manners; and an elegant, prim little woman from Philadelphia, patronizing only ice water, was terribly shocked by the whole proceedings. A funny mixture, but lots of fun to watch.

At last we are on our way, by train. The boat up the Saguenay to Lake St. John runs only on Tuesdays and Fridays, also it’s more expensive, and takes a day longer. There is no auto road, so we have left our car and duds in charge of the caretaker of the tourist camp. The train runs through the wildest, woolliest country, all forests, rocks, lakes, rivers and mountains. I never saw so many heavenly lakes. The gorgeous autumn foliage lent its glamor to the scenery.



Quebec City, Que.

Tues., Oct. 19, 1926

Arriving back in Quebec on the sleeper this morning, we were glad to find letters from home awaiting us. At the Price Paper Co. Colony at River Bend, we met the fiery-tempered housekeeper in the King Edward boarding house where we had lunch. A more British Britisher never lived. After all the other boarders had left, she came to our table and simply railed against the French-Canadians, or rather French-Indians, as she called them, and particularly against the priests, although she was a Catholic herself, citing incident after gory incident.

This morning we had taken the train from Chicoutimi to Isle Maligne, where there is a huge power plant. Bill had a letter to one of the men in charge, but thought we’d see the plant before contacting him. It was lucky we did, for the man turned out to be a prude and a clam and Bill never would have learned the things he did if we had relied on his taking us through the outfit.

Then, after walking the three miles to River Bend, we went through the Price Paper Mill which, barely a year old, is the last word in modernity. It was only 2 o’clock after all this and our train wasn’t to leave the junction nine miles away until 9:24 P.M., so there was heaps of time to get some real exercise. We walked the whole nine miles, arriving before 6, hungry and no place to eat in sight. When a freight train hove in view, the station agent said we could ride on that to Herbertsville where there was a hotel. So into the caboose we climbed, having a novel, though unsociable, five-mile ride, for the trainmen could not speak English or understand Bill’s overseas French. Bill gets on easily with the city Frenchmen, but not so with those in the wilds.

Herbertsville is a little prairie village of shacks, like Bret Harte’s “Mud Flats” I imagine. Anyway, we managed to get a good meal in its one hotel. In the narrow dining room, red ribbons held back the long lace window curtains; bright chromes of fruits and flowers hung on the walls; and a statue of a nymph bathing in a pool stood on the mantel. There was no bill-of-fare, and not being able to understand one single word the little French waitress said, the neighbors kindly helped us out. During the meal there was charming singing in the kitchen--a mother humming a lullaby to her baby. We noticed the son stopped at the appearance of our waitress. Sometimes one or two other voices chimed in and once someone struck up a gay tune on an accordion, so the baby, no doubt, had to be rocked to sleep again.



Massena, N.Y.

Sat., Oct. 30, 1926

After an uneventful drive down from Quebec City, we arrived in Montreal and heard that Queen Marie of Rumania was in town. While sitting in the car on Wednesday, waiting for Bill, the queen, her two children, the mayor and various hangers-on came streaming by, with great blowing of horns and buzzing of motorcycle cops. I read in the papers that she was going to attend the opera that night, Chaliapin in the Barber of Seville. So Bill and I blew ourselves to $1.65 standing room and sat on benches in the top balcony. The opera was fine, but the aging Chaliapin had such a small part you hardly had a chance to learn what his voice was like; the orchestra was thin, the soprano splendid except when she flatted her high notes; the queen was gorgeous, but poor little Princess Ileana, drab and tired-looking. But we felt very gay!

It really seems a lot warmer here in the states, and the leaves are not off the trees as they are in Montreal. However, as chilly as it was in Canada, we never slept cold because we had taken so many blankets and warm clothes. It is the dressing, undressing, bathing and cooking that are cold. It has rained or snowed a lot, making camping very inconvenient, so several times we have rented a room in an inn or guest house. This, together with the higher costs in Canada, has made the trip expensive. It seems a joy to get 18¢ gas and 30¢ oil this morning. No wonder there are so many horses and bicycles in Canada. We passed the customs all right without having to unpack all our duffle, as we were afraid we might.

All day we tried in vain to go through the Aluminum Plant here in Massena, because, as in Shawinigan, a wire had to be sent to Pittsburgh to get permission from President Davis.

It is half raining and half snowing tonight, we are again being extravagant and have taken a room in the Gouverneur Hotel.



Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Thurs., Nov. 11, 1926

The weather has been too horrid to camp. After spending three nights in Massena and going through the Aluminum Plant there, we traveled about 180 miles and stopped at a wayside guest house, where the oddest people were assembled. We cried half the evening and laughed the rest.

The man of the house, after unfortunately breaking his leg in June, had developed gangrene and diabetes. Hospital, doctor and insulin bills were eating up whatever small capital they had. Luckily, his wife, who had been a nurse, was strong and capable. But my, she was funny looking! A huge head of moth-eaten, close cropped, hennaed hair was getting gray at the roots. Like a clown, her moon face was plastered white with powder, except her large pug nose, worn red and shiny by a cold.

Her brother and a cousin kept us in stitches the entire time, joking and kidding each other, sometimes being really clever. Many of their jokes were about homely people, and I never saw a homelier bunch. The short fat cousin’s skin was drawn tightly across his face and neck, and when he laughed the blood rushed to his head in such a great surge I was afraid it would burst.

The brother who lives with them was quite traveled and told many, probably imaginative, stories of his adventures out west. The only help he seemed to give was to make them laugh. Perhaps that was enough. “Oh, the people!” as Bill says, how interesting we are!

Bill wants to get a really reliable picture of the water power situation here in Niagara Falls. Upon reaching Buffalo yesterday afternoon we unsuccessfully called Ruth Shattock several times before driving to her home. The man downstairs told us Mr. Shattock had just died and Ruth had taken the body to Manchester. Poor Ruth, both her parents died so young.

As the rain had let up, we parked in the tourist camp for the night. Pools of water still remained on the ground, which otherwise looked firm. But upon stopping the car we immediately had our doubts, and tried to move to a more solid location, but the back wheels just spun, digging deeper and deeper into the mud. As it was getting dark we decided to stay put until the morning, when we could see what we were doing, and have the benefit of the night’s freeze to harden the surface.

In the morning, however, although the ground was covered with hoarfrost, it did not seem any firmer, and the wheels again spun and dug. We put brush and sticks under them but it was really Bill’s pushing that did the trick. When he pushed and I put on the power, the car crawled ahead just perceptibly, but without his mighty brawn, it did not budge.

This tourist camp was supposed to be closed for the season, but we were given permission to use its splendid facilities--washrooms, showers and lavatories, as fine as those in any club.

We found Buffalo dingy and overrun with factories, because of the cheap water power. Last night the falls were perfectly gorgeous, lit up by colored lights. After the supper we enjoyed the movie, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

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1973 NOTE

We spent the winter of 1926-27 at Clinton St., in Brooklyn. Bill, however, took several trips of investigation by train without me. But as soon as the weather became springlike, we hit the road again, as Bill wanted to inspect the Cyanamid Plant at Niagara Falls.

_______________________________________________



En route to Buffalo, N.Y.

Sun., April 4, 1927

It was clear and cold yesterday when we found a fine place to camp near Monticello, N.Y., so we built a big bonfire to warm us while we ate supper and read. In spite of the ice on the pail this morning, it was simply great--the sun shining and the birds singing, bluebirds, robins, red-winged blackbirds and chickadees, the old familiar friends. I looked for pussy willows, but they have already turned into catkins. The weeping willows wear their marvelous soft spring green and the maples their bright new red.

Before we broke camp the owner of the property paid us a visit. He seemed irritated at first that we had camped on his land, but we took the wind out of his sails by our apologies. I don’t know why we had not sought his permission; we almost always do. But I guess we were so excited by our first trip of the year that we forgot. A good-natured man, he became interested in our fixings.

We have been following the Delaware River through the mountains, on the north and west sides of which the snow still clings. In one pass, beside the road, it was six feet high. This is a Jewish recreational area, and we passed one sanitarium-like hotel after another, each with white iron bedsteads to be seen through the windows. The Hebrew name on each sign post was usually supplemented by “Strictly Kosher” or “For Jews Only.”

After driving through a coal district with kilns along the road, we stopped in the town of Liberty to buy a better light for our tent. A lavender Ford with flowers painted on the doors and gray silk curtains draped back from the windows with gold cord and tassels was slowly driven past by a flashy Italian gentleman with long flowing mustachios outlining his rosy cheeks, and wearing a black fedora canted rakishly--quite unique!

The first of April must have opened the fishing season, for the brooks are lined with fishermen. Sap buckets hang on many maples. Spring is here!



The Central Hotel, Bainbridge, N.Y.

Mon., April 5, 1927

Spring has flown! Today, sitting in the best bedroom of this little hotel, I hear a man shoveling snow in front of the town hall across the street. But to lead up to this great eminence:

Yesterday Bill thought he’d like to camp early so we could get in a good walk before dark. Not far from a place called Hancock, we found a splendid camping location, out of the briskly blowing wind. Keeping the day-before’s experience in mind, we punctiliously got permission from the owner before setting up camp. Then we took a fine walk up a wood road beside a brook into the hills. As well as raising one partridge, we got our feet nice and wet. This night was even colder than the one before, with a lovely moon in a clear sky. We built a big fire and made careful preparations for keeping warm, viz: hot water bottles, heavy underwear, sweaters, shelter-halves placed under the bedroll as well as over it. Then, cozy as could be, I read “Lone Winter” out loud to Bill; but we found this story about Vermont rather sentimental and tiresome.

Very early in the morning it began to hail, raising the question whether to pack up immediately before it got worse, without washing or eating, or take a chance, get a leisurely bath and a nice warm breakfast. We chose the latter, as Bainbridge, where Bill wanted to look into the Casine Co., was only fifty miles distant. We knew we could make that in most any weather.

The hail soon changed to snow and then to rain, and now has almost drizzled away. Warming up the car before leaving camp, we were comfortable all the way here.

When Bill inquired at this inn for a room with a bath, the manager, looking at his camping clothes, contemptuously said, “We have a room beside a bath.” As much as to say, “You don’t look as if you could pay for that, let alone a room with a bath.” He did not even help him with the bags, until he saw he had a “lady” with him, then he became most solicitous. Dinner was past, he said, but he could bring us something to eat in our room.

Bill is downstairs now, pumping the gossips about the Casine Co. Above the steaming radiator I can hear music from a radio, probably from Schenectady, and reception is pretty good. We have both been interested in radio since Bill made several superheterodynes for the family, as well as selling a few in 1922. Although it is only 4 P.M., the day is so dark I have the light on, one dim, naked bulb. I wish we had brought in our new tent light.



Hotel Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y.

Mon., April 12, 1927

Bill had to make an emergency trip to New York by train Friday morning, and I am expecting him back any minute now. It has been lonely without him, but I have seen a lot of Ruth Shattock, which has been nice.

Ruth teaches in a public kindergarten, where I visited her. In the afternoon I drove her along the shore of Lake Erie. After dinner we went to a lecture on Psychology; rather pathetic, I thought. A lot of disappointed, disillusioned people, trying to find something to which to cling. Of course that may not have been it at all, but it seems so to me. A number of faddists were present, vibrationists, spookists and thought-healing-ists. The boy who talked was most interesting, enthusiastic and likable, but seemed a bit hazy on the logic of what he was trying to put over, so tried to give the impression that it was all very abstruse, and above the heads of his audience.

The weather Sunday afternoon was wonderful and I drove out to the falls by myself and met Ruth at the Hotel Niagara. The mounds of ice below the falls were nearly as high as the falls themselves. The sun, shimmering on the icicles dripping decoratively from the spray-wet trees, was dazzling. We drove along the river, past the lower rapids and whirlpool, to Youngstown, where the river empties into Lake Ontario. After going through old Fort Niagara, we had dinner here at the hotel.

Although I had occasionally driven the motorcycle alone, up to this week I had never driven a car alone and it gave me a great feeling of independence.




POSTSCRIPT * 1973

Bill returned to Buffalo the night of the last entry in my Diary, and we stayed several days while he resumed his investigation of the Cyanamid Co. at Niagara Falls. Not many months later, when he had enough money, he bought stock in this company.

Bill continued the strategy of thoroughly looking into many angles of company management and future worth of stocks in which he was interested, either from the market’s standpoint or from analysis in Moody’s Manuals, seeking those stocks which were low priced in relation to their potential.

For several years he made these investigations for Frank Shaw, who often carried him for stock, but as Bill became able, he made investments for himself. Most of the stocks he recommended increased in value, and our financial status kept pace.

By 1927 we lived in a nice three-room apartment in a good residential district. Bill was feeling his oats so, when our neighbor moved out of the apartment next door, he rented it and had the wall between pulled down, thus giving us two bedrooms, two baths, two kitchens, and one tremendous living room--the point of it all. Bill always loved large living rooms. A grand piano, of course, was needed to fill the expanded space. (I recently came across the old bill--$1,600, for a Mason and Hamlin piano.) We had to take a three-year lease and promise to pay for the re-erection of the wall upon leaving.

Bill had dabbled a little in the stock market before our motorcycle trip. By selling eight Liberty Bonds he bought during World War I out of his army pay, he opened an account with Bayliss and Co. In 1922. Among the first stocks he bought were two shares of General Electric and three of International Nickel. But the stocks that really gained in value, and gained quickly, were among those he bought because of his investigations.

After the stock market crash in 1929 Bill lost a lot of money, for like everyone else at that time, he had bought on margin. However, he had made some very good business connections in Canada where the crash did not hit as hard as in the States. When Greenshields and Co. invited him to join their staff, we moved to Montreal. There we rented another expensive apartment, in a new building on Mt. Royal, overlooking the city, paying for the Brooklyn one as well.

On the day we first went to look at the apartment, I remember I lost my engagement ring. Pulling off my gloves as we walked on boards laid down across rubble to reach the apartment, I must unknowingly have pulled off my ring at the same time, and it dropped in the rubble.

Besides the fun, the trip was a partial success from my standpoint, too, because it slowed down Bill’s drinking temporarily, there being only three or four episodes that I remember. One was in Egypt, the rainy day “the boarder” spent with us in our tent. Bill kept him company, drink for drink, and then went to town for a bottle after the boarder left.

At another time we were camping off by ourselves, I don’t remember where, Bill provided himself with a supply of liquor for the weekend. As there was no one to see me “get potted,” I thought it was a splendid opportunity to hold a mirror up to him and to show him what a fool a person appears when drunk.

However, the moment was not auspicious after all, for Bill thought it a great game, and encouraged me to drink more and more, until I was so sick I couldn’t hold up my head. In the morning he had only a little hangover--mine was excruciating, and all for nothing.

Once, as we were about to cross the international border from Canada to the United States, we stopped at the entrance, because Bill said he wanted to get some cigarettes. This was nonsense, as cigarettes were more expensive in Canada--but liquor was cheaper. I could do nothing but wait and wait, hour after hour, parked on the bridge plaza, with no car keys or money, since Bill, who had been sober for sometime, had them with him. I had no idea where he had gone, but finally started out on foot to find him. It was getting dark and the area was full of saloons. I searched every one of them until, at last I found him, hardly able to navigate--and the money practically gone!