February 26, 1946

February 1946. World War II is over and wartime production jobs were ending. During the war, Carl and Georgie worked a number of jobs in several places, finishing the war in Pocatello, Idaho. They elected to return to Iowa, where they both had family, but opted to make a grand tour of the west on the way. Georgie wrote a journal of the trip. The story starts here.

The next morning we drove through Morro Bay, saw the famous Morro Rock. Drove through San Luis Obispo where we saw the army camp of that name, then to Pismo Beach, Arroya Grande, Nipomo, Santa Maria, Los Alamos, down to Santa Barbara.

There we stopped and went through the Santa Barbara Mission. One of the Franciscan fathers conducted us through and explained all of the details which were very interesting. We thought Santa Barbara the most beautiful city we saw in California because of the many trees and shrubs. Here we saw a convertible hearse – another idea typically Californian.

We continued along the coast and got to Ventura about 3 o’clock. Called our friends the Dubois’ and stayed with them

Georgie and Gladys Dubois. Carl and Gladys Dubois.

Walt’s Comments

I had to look up Morro Rock. I had no idea what it was. Ah, such is fame!

The Pictures in this Series

Mom sourced the pictures in her scrapbook from a variety of sources. Many, of course, were taken by Dad, or by herself, or some friend holding Carl’s camera. The pictures of people were theirs, and a few other shots as well.

But a lot of the pictures were from other sources. It’s hard to fathom in the era of digital photos, and phones that take excellent pictures, but in 1946 photographic film, even black and white, was pretty expensive, and processing the film into prints was even more expensive. So if there was some other source for a photo of some place, it made sense to use it.

Then too, the photos in brochures, and the photos of each city’s landmarks that you could buy in shops about town, were better pictures. Dad’s camera was a Brownie box camera, and the quality was pretty low. When we scanned in the snapshots and looked closely at them, the focus on the edges was pretty poor. The lack of selectable shutter speeds and aperture made some photos too dark, and others too light. And the overall clarity was a far cry from what we expect any phone to do today. In short, if there was another source for a photo of what you wanted a photo of, you should probably get it, as it’s likely to be better and cheaper than anything you could take yourself.

We would love to list the sources of the individual pictures in the scrapbook. Unfortunately, in most cases we don’t know where she got them.

Digging Deeper

Atlas Obscura has a nice writeup of Morro Rock.