Mother's Adventures at Sea
Page three
by Jean Nicolson|
Mother now decided to visit Seattle, Washington, where my father and she had their first home, and where she still had a few friends. She had last seen these friends in 1909. From Seattle mother traveled to San Francisco where there were most of my father's relatives. She told me afterwards that if I had been with her we should have gone to Tucson, Arizona, where my father and mother and my little brother had lived for four years. They actually lived fifty miles from Tucson in a ranch high up in the mountains. My father was suffering from TB and he had been advised that his only hope of recovery was to live out in the open in the desert. So they lived in tents in what was at times intense heat. After my father passed away in 1903, my mother and my brother aged five and I, aged one year, set off for Scotland, my Mother having disposed of most of her possessions in Seattle.
Mother made her way by long distance bus to New Orleans and boarded the small Dutch ship. She shared a small cabin with a young lady missionary, Miss Schmalenberger, of German origin, from Alsace Lorraine. Because there were so few passengers they had meals at the Captain and Officers" table. Mother commented later on the fine, courteous behaviour of Captain and men. On the following day, Mother was sitting in the lounge when she noticed a man painting the windows with gray paint. "Are you expecting trouble?" Mother inquired. "No, Madam", he replied, "but it is best to be prepared." At this point in time, Germany had over-run Holland without warning and Holland was counted an enemy although she had taken no action. The United States had not as yet entered the fray. Two of the passengers were Jewish men who had escaped from Europe but had been refused asylum in the USA. They hoped to find refuge in S. Africa or in Australia or New Zealand. There were a couple of young male students from South Africa who had been studying in the USA and were returning to Johannesburg. They had British passports. There was a missionary couple with a ten month old baby boy who were going to a Mission Station in the Belgian Congo, and the young lady with whom Mother shared a cabin was traveling with them.
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To return to July, 1940: Mother returned to New York and set about securing a passage to South Africa. I had informed Mother that I had decided to return to Rhodesia in April 1940. So she gave up the idea of returning to Scotland, and she sought a sailing for Cape Town. At first she was offered a berth in a Japanese ship but this was canceled. She was then told that there was a berth available on a small Dutch vessel, the S.S. Kertosono, which was leaving from New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico in a few weeks time. She was told that the ship carried only eight passengers, and it was obviously a cargo boat.
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