Trip to Venezuela, 1943

At long last the time came to join our Dad who was now working in Venezuela as Business Manager for the U.S. Office of Inter American Affairs. I was eleven at this time. We got our clothes ready and bought some new ones. Byron, my uncle who was the Pennys manager, had encouraged Mom to buy our shoes that Saturday, not wait until Monday, as she had planned. She followed his advice and was very glad because on Monday rationing began and she would not have been able to purchase all she wanted.
We boarded the train and headed for Miami, Florida. It seemed like we changed trains a lot; sometimes in the middle of the night. We ate in the train dining room. One time Mom saw "baby soup" listed on the menu. She thought it would be some good soup and ordered it for me. I was so embarrassed when the waiter brought me a jar of baby food! I made up for it by ordering something quite grown up to eat. We waited eight hours in the station in New Orleans. It was a filthy, dirty place and we were filthy and dirty by the time we left there. Mom had tried to keep Nancy clean but, after so many hours, finally had to let her down on the floor and she got so dirty. It was the first time I had seen separate drinking fountains and restrooms for whites and blacks. It gave one a funny feeling.
We arrived in Miami and I thought it a beautiful place. We stayed in a fancy hotel, the Columbus, but we didn't stay long. I believe it was the Vice President of the U.S. and his party that came and the guests on our floor had to leave. We found a little hotel or rooming house close by which was much cheaper. We had not planned on staying very long in Miami but our priority (government permit to travel) had not come so we couldn't leave.
Mom got very sick and had to stay in bed. Mom kept Nancy, age one and one-half with her while I took Gina, age eight, and Freddy, age three, to a restaurant for each meal, three times a day. I was eleven at the time. I would bring back food for her on a tray; she had baby food in the room for Nancy to eat. I would also walk to the airline office each day to inquire if our priority had come. We were there about one week. Mom got well and our priority finally came. It had been sent in the wrong name, just plain "Corraine", with no surname or anything.
Another thing we did while waiting in Miami was go on walks. Gina, Fred, and I would go up and down the sidewalks looking at the store windows. When Mom got well she took just me to a drug store and bought me a root beer float; my first one. It was quite a treat.
When we left Miami we flew in a seaplane, stopping a short time in Jamaica, where the passengers were greeted with rum or lemonade. I gathered beautiful sea shells along the beach. That night we landed in Barranquilla, Colombia. The hotel was a grandiose thing. It had a beautiful swimming pool, surrounded with greenery, set in the middle of the buildings. It looked like something out of a Hollywood movie set. I wanted to go swimming but we didn't have any suits with us.
The next day we flew on to Venezuela, landing at La Guaira, the airport for Caracas. Dad was not there to meet us! I think Mom was about ready to fly back, but she didn't have any money left. The people at the airport told us Dad had been there earlier but, since we hadn't arrived while he was there, he didn't think we would be coming in that day. He had met the planes from Miami, not knowing we had had to go to Colombia first. Since it was still war time, Mom wasn't permitted to cable any vital information so she couldn't let him know our arrival time. We took a taxi to his hotel in Caracas and made ourselves at home in his room. He arrived a short while later and, seeing children in his room, thought he had the wrong room until he recognized us all. We had a happy reunion.