512 8th Avenue
Brooklyn, New York
November 21, 1950
Dear folks,
I know that I should have written quite some time ago but I’ve been so busy that I just haven’t had the time and here it is the night before the day I go on board the ship.
I was in Grand Rapids for two days, Tuesday nite until Friday noon. It was nice to meet her folks. They are Dutch, as many are in Grand Rapids. It was a sad farewell for them, too, but since then we have been rushing around here in New York. The train took us to Detroit and then up into Canada and over near Niagara Falls and down from northern New York, but it was nearly all night travel so we didn’t see anything and the train wasn’t the best so I didn’t get too much sleep even though I was dead tired.
We will be going aboard the Queen Elizabeth (over 87,000 ton ship) tomorrow nite at eight o’clock, and we’ll leave early the 23rd, so I’ve heard.
Did I tell you that your package and the one from Mrs. Dunkeld arrived while I was still in Grand Rapids? I’ll be having Christmas on the boat as we won’t reach Beira until January 13. How is that for a sea voyage? We are not going around the Cape but instead we’ll go through the Suez Canal and around the East Coast. That is the way I’ve always hoped to travel but being that it is so slow I never thought I’d get the chance but it seems that whether I want to or not that is our route. I’ll probably be getting down at Msengedzi about the same time I did the first time I went there, the latter part of January. I’ll be a little late for the opening of school, won’t I?
I sent the Christmas present for Doloris to you so I trust that you don’t get excited and think that I sent something to you. I surely would love to. It is hard not to be able to get something but I feel that I just mustn’t spend anymore of my money. I guess you know how it is. There are so many, many expenditures every way I turn. Baggage is a terrible item to draw one’s purse. Things are so terribly expensive too, one hates to buy. I’ll send this air mail so maybe it will reach you quicker. We’ll get into Southampton on the evening of the 28th, and we’ll leave London December 6. The Durban Castle is only 17,000 something in tonnage so it is considerably smaller than S.S. Queen E. We are going first class on that boat so I hear Wyn and I will have a room alone on the Queen Elizabeth. I have my sea-sick pills, $4.00 per hundred, so you see they are expensive. Let’s hope that they work O.K. I’ll be writing to you lots along the way. Did I ever give you my England address?
℅ 7 Crisp
14 Westrow Gardens
Essex, England
Maybe you’ll write to me there. I hear also that we will be in Mombasa five days. That is somewhere near Kenya or something. Anyway East Africa – look on the map and see and why not write to me there addressed ℅ S.S. Durban Castle enroute to Beira, First Class Passenger, then write Mombasa, East Africa or wherever it is. Try it and see. We probably won’t get there until about two weeks or more after leaving England.
I’ve written oodles of letters and still have oodles more to write and it is 11 p.m. Last nite it was nearly two o’clock by the time I went to bed. Did I tell you that I got a small camera in Chicago with a reduction? It is another Argus model called Argoflex 75. See it in Ward’s Catalogue, just the kind that I wanted. It takes 620 film.
Well, I suppose that I could write lots more but no doubt it would be boring. I’m wondering if you have the corn all finished, and how everything is going along. Wyn is calling her people on the phone tomorrow, but I’m not going to do that. I must write to Radio Chapel tonite, too. I’ve received quite a lot of money along the way but it has slipped away for various things. The nite I left Chicago, oh I guess I wrote about the affair at the church. Larry, it’s too bad you can’t come and see the sights in New York. I’ve been too busy to enjoy them. We were at the Everswick’s people Saturday p.m. until Monday a.m. I have lots of stuff which belongs to other people to take over there. I’m wondering what I’ll be charged for duty. I must say good-bye now. The Lord bless you – maybe I’ll drop a card tomorrow nite at the pier.
Love,
Eunice