My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Chris were the childless couple that my cousins and I always most admired. Not bogged down by family life, they became globetrotters, and always had a nice souvenir for us each Christmas. Given that most of my many female cousins also declined the urge to have a family, and traveled insted, I guess their influence was a remarkable one. In any case, after they died, I inherited by handme down boxes of slides, which I recently digitized with a scanner. While my uncle's photography skills were modest, he was able to capture some period poses
that I have posted at my Virtualtourist.com pages as "1960's retro" (see link in the margin). In the July 1962 trip to Barrow Alaska, where they visited the Presbyterian Church Mission among the Inuit there, we see them dressed up in traditional cold weather gear, but in another image in the same town, my aunt stands at the beach in three inch heals and a skirt and blouse and nothing more.
For her, travel meant dressing up for a special occasion, unlike the backpacker mentality that travelers have evolved toward today. My Uncle was similarly disposed toward a tendency to dress up for travel. At Giza, for example, we see him wearing a white shirt and tie. Everyone poses formally with the clear view of the pyramids at Giza behind them. Nearly forty years later, I posed at that same spot completely unaware that the pyramids were out there, for the smog had obscured their view. And, on the flight to Hawaii, Uncle Chris wears a full suit, overcoat, and hat. Passport and airline ticket in hand, and carrying his properly tagged carry-on bag, he seems only slightly interested in the Aloha girl who holds his arm. This was a routine trip that he had taken before, and his debonaire style shows in his pose. My grandfather, who rarely left his home in San Francisco after his massive heart attack in 1957, also sports a full suit for the occasion, but shows his preoccupation with the pretty hospitality girl. Wrapping his arm around her, he demonstrates his venerable manliness even at this late age, while the Aloha girl poses more sensually, more like the object of male affection that Pan Am had intended to be. Another thing I found remarkable among the
images was the antiquated cruise ship. My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Chris's epoch spanned from the height of world cruise ship adventures through to the advent of world flights, when Pan Am was the leader. The ship appears to be one christened during the heady post WWII days, when ships still had port hole windows and wooden decks, but also when cramped swimming pools and shuffle board had become the rage.
My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Chris were the childless couple that my cousins and I always most admired. Not bogged down by family life, they became globetrotters, and always had a nice souvenir for us each Christmas. Given that most of my many female cousins also declined the urge to have a family, and traveled insted, I guess their influence was a remarkable one. In any case, after they died, I inherited by handme down boxes of slides, which I recently digitized with a scanner. While my uncle's photography skills were modest, he was able to capture some period poses
that I have posted at my Virtualtourist.com pages as "1960's retro" (see link in the margin). In the July 1962 trip to Barrow Alaska, where they visited the Presbyterian Church Mission among the Inuit there, we see them dressed up in traditional cold weather gear, but in another image in the same town, my aunt stands at the beach in three inch heals and a skirt and blouse and nothing more.
For her, travel meant dressing up for a special occasion, unlike the backpacker mentality that travelers have evolved toward today. My Uncle was similarly disposed toward a tendency to dress up for travel. At Giza, for example, we see him wearing a white shirt and tie. Everyone poses formally with the clear view of the pyramids at Giza behind them. Nearly forty years later, I posed at that same spot completely unaware that the pyramids were out there, for the smog had obscured their view. And, on the flight to Hawaii, Uncle Chris wears a full suit, overcoat, and hat. Passport and airline ticket in hand, and carrying his properly tagged carry-on bag, he seems only slightly interested in the Aloha girl who holds his arm. This was a routine trip that he had taken before, and his debonaire style shows in his pose. My grandfather, who rarely left his home in San Francisco after his massive heart attack in 1957, also sports a full suit for the occasion, but shows his preoccupation with the pretty hospitality girl. Wrapping his arm around her, he demonstrates his venerable manliness even at this late age, while the Aloha girl poses more sensually, more like the object of male affection that Pan Am had intended to be. Another thing I found remarkable among the
images was the antiquated cruise ship. My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Chris's epoch spanned from the height of world cruise ship adventures through to the advent of world flights, when Pan Am was the leader. The ship appears to be one christened during the heady post WWII days, when ships still had port hole windows and wooden decks, but also when cramped swimming pools and shuffle board had become the rage.
