I always knew my mother had a diary. She kept it in an old trunk filled with objects that she treasured. It was always there — a travel diary of her first trip to Europe in 1930. Mama and her best friend had graduated from nursing college in 1929. She and Neysa had saved their earnings that first year and sailed from Canada on the Cunard Line to Europe. In that travel diary she wrote daily entries from the very start of that wonderful three-month trip. It wasn’t until I was almost 14 that I received a travel diary from my mother. She was taking my sister, Maureen, and me to Europe — a trip financed by an inheritance she had received. And she bought us each a diary to record our thoughts and impressions.
I don’t recall ever reading my mother’s diary as a child, but many years later, after her passing, I picked it up and read it. And I smiled. I laughed. I cried. That was almost 20 years ago.
In that book of memories she wrote daily of the sites she visited, the adventures she had and the souvenirs she purchased. On the last leg of her European trip she spent three weeks in Paris, staying with her friend Neysa in a small hotel on the Left Bank. They explored the many museums, landmarks and shops. They dined in the small restaurants and boulevard cafes nearby. She was faithful about writing an entry in her travel diary every day of her trip. An entry dated Sept. 8, 1930, cites the purchase of a French doll at Galleries Lafayette.
Today that Parisian doll, well-worn from play by my sister Maureen and me, sits in a case at the La Center Historical Museum with other antique dolls. Her beautiful face, with light-blue eyes and Clara Bow lips, peeking out from a wide-brimmed, black velvet bonnet has defied time. But her long, slender neck needs support. The once brilliant red, Can-Can ruffled dress has faded. Her dancing shoes are gone. She is about 3 feet tall. I remember dancing with her and doing the Can-Can in our living room. At our doll parties we used to get out Mama’s champagne glasses and fill them with 7-Up to simulate champagne. Alongside the French doll in the museum case is a framed photo of my mother taken in the 1930s and her travel diary.
