Our Dad loved to travel. But it was Mom who held the whole operation together. Dad would propose a trip and Mom would plan it with the help of their AAA membership. Dad usually drove the family car ( a Ford) with Mom in the front passenger seat and little sister Marita riding in the middle with her head on Mom’s lap. Marita slept a lot on our trips. When she was awake, she sat on a homemade car seat (no seat belts then) made from a wooden peach crate. Inside of the “car seat” was storage room for maps,etc.
Mom liked to drive too and often relieved Dad at the wheel. Mom was a careful driver, while Dad liked to drive fast, take sharp corners, and stop fast! He said we were all safe though because he had “good reflexes”.
Mom would have a a cooler by her feet with food for picnic dinners at noon and cooking supplies for breakfasts and suppers fixed in motels. Also she would have the camera bag that contained a snapshot camera, a slide camera, and a movie camera along with extra film. She would write in a small notebook to keep track of expenses along with a daily record of activities. Our trips were well documented by Mom.
In the back seat Tommy sat by the left window, Kent by the right window, and Kathy in the middle. These three siblings did not sleep much as the miles went by. Most of the time they were watching the changing landscape. But sometimes they played games found in a book Kent had received as a present. One of the favorite games consisted of spotting various sights as we traveled such as a black sheep, etc. We would get points based on what we saw. In hot weather we would often have some of the windows open in the car (no air conditioners). It made for noisy and windy traveling, but better then the heat. The little triangular vent windows on the side fronts were very convenient.
Storage was carefully organized in the family sedan. Up front was the glove compartment, Marita’s car seat, and Mom’s cooler and bags. Behind the back seat was a window well with a ledge for storing books, etc. For one of our trips Dad decided we needed more storage. So he designed a storage shelf above our heads in the car with an opening across the front over the back of the front seats. It was made of a brown masonite board held in place with two metal fence posts stuck into the upholstery over the side windows. It looked rather strange, but worked well. The exception was when Dad made one of his fast stops. Stuff would come sliding across the shelf and the rest of us would try to keep it from falling down on the people in the front seat. Also we would need to keep the items from falling off the ledge behind the back seat. We all got pretty good at doing this.
In the 1950’s most people on the road stayed in motels, hotels, or tourist cabins. We would stay in motels or tourist cabins with kitchenettes so Mom could cook breakfast and supper. As evening approached, we would look for AAA advertised motels with a neon sign stating “vacancy”. Some evenings we would see a lot of “no vacancy” signs before finding a possibility. Mom and Dad would go in to inquire about price and check the condition of the room before agreeing to take it for the night. While they were doing that, the four kids had to wait in the car. In nice weather Kent and Tom would have the back side windows rolled down. They would crawl out the windows and sit in the empty window frame with their legs inside and the tops of their bodies outside. They would be facing each other over the roof of the car and throw a ball back and forth. Kathy and Marita would have to patiently wait in the car.
We usually stayed in a room with two double beds, or a double bed and a rollaway. Mom, Dad, Kent and Tom got the beds while Kathy and Marita slept in sleeping bags on the floor hauled in from the trunk of the car. On some trips we also brought along an old army cot. Kathy and Marita would sleep on that with their heads at opposite ends and a firm reminder from Mom to “keep their legs to one side and not kick their sister.”
Many of the motel rooms had television sets in the 1950”s. But you had to pay an extra 25-50 cents to get a special cord from the motel office so one could use the television. I don’t remember our family ever paying the extra money to watch one. We were on a tight budget.
Gas stations were an important part of our travels. Dad always bought gas at Standard Oil (now BP) stations. All gas stations had attendants (often high school boys) who pumped the gas, washed the windshields, and checked the oil under the hood. In hot weather they might also be adding water to the radiator. Stations would have big signs advertising that they had clean restrooms. There were no convenience stores inside, but an office (often messy and dirty) where you paid. The office might also have a radio or television too. There would also be well equipped service bays inside a attached garage to work on your car if necessary. We often stopped at stations to check on road conditions and to get directions to local addresses.
Short Trips in the Midwest
Some of our earliest trips were day trips or weekend trips in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. We did day trips (usually on Sunday) to the Twin Cities for special events. The Ice Follies in Minneapolis with professional skaters was a favorite. Usually we had seats up high in the convention center. But one time Dad surprised us. As we walked out of the concourses into the seats, we were all ready to start walking up to the top. But Dad started down toward the front by the ice rink as the rest of us watched in amazement. He had splurged and it was so exciting to be so close to the show on ice.
We had a couple favorite restaurants in downtown Minneapolis. One was the Forum
Cafeteria on South 7th Street. We kids had a tough time limiting our choices as we walked through line. It all looked so tempting. Another favorite was the Nanking Chinese Restaurant with their beautiful lanterns hanging along the walls. Mom would order hot tea and ask the waitress not to bring green tea. (When Kathy was in college, she worked one summer at a Jewish Country Club in the Twin Cities. There she learned that it was a nice Jewish couple who owned that Chinese Restaurant.)
One of our favorite spots in Minneapolis was the Cinerama Movie Theatre with the wide screen where we watched the feature “The Seven Wonders of the World.” A year later we came back to see “Search for Paradise.”
We also liked to attend the Minnesota State Fair at the end of August. We saw square dancing tractors and ate miniature donuts from the automatic donut machine. The state fair was enormous stretching over many acres with numerous exhibits, vendors, and big crowds of people. In later years we spent much time there exhibiting in 4-H and staying in the dorm on the 3rd floor of the big white 4-H building. One year Brother Tom stayed at the state fair the whole 10 days exhibiting sheep in open class and FFA.
A family trip that we did nearly every year was a weekend trip to Baraboo, Wisconsin, to visit Dad’s brother Severn Rinkob and his family. We would drive on old US highway 16 across southern Minnesota to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, to cross the wide Mississippi River and then continue southeast to Baraboo. Severn, Catherine, and their 3 daughters lived in a 1920‘s Tudor style house close to downtown. When we got there we would all shake hands (no hugs back then), talk loudly about how happy everyone was to see each other, and “my, how the children have grown.” Catherine would cook wonderful (gourmet to this farm kid) meals. She had a cupboard in her kitchen with a door to the outside. She would set pies to cool in this cupboard. Originally that had been where the milkman used to leave milk for the family. Catherine, who was an excellent seamstress, would show us her latest sewing project. In later years she made many quilts.
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| Kathy, Kris, Aunt Catherine, & Marita (1953) |
Severn would show us his big garden in the back yard. Then he would take us on drives in the area to see the high school where he was principal and point out local geological features. We would take hikes around Devil’s Lake. One time when we were hiking in the woods a guard suddenly appeared. Turned out we were getting too close to a U.S. munitions factory.
1952-1953 Family Trip to California
Most of our family’s longer trips were taken in the 1950’s after Marita was no longer a baby and before Tom left for college in 1958. December 1952 we left on a trip to California and Texas. We were gone over Christmas vacation and New Year’s so the kids didn’t miss too much school.
As we were traveling across Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada by car, we stopped at a gas station to fill it up. Dad, Tom and Kent went in to pay while Mom, Kathy and Marita waited in the car. When the guys came back out, they told us they had seen a television playing in the office of the station! The rest of us were envious. Finally when we got to California, we stayed with some old friends of Mom and Dad’s near San Francisco and they had a television. So the rest of us finally got to see this great new invention!

On our way to California we visited Salt Lake City. Our family would visit the capitol buildings in each state and Mom would buy a china state plate. We toured the Mormon tabernacle where the choir performed. The guide demonstrated the excellent acoustics and told us the building was held together with wooden pegs instead of nails. But the fondest memory of SLC was the salt water taffy we bought and ate as treats on the rest of our trip.
The California we visited did not have Disneyland, but was very agricultural with lots of citrus groves, vineyards, and vast fields of produce. Near San Francisco we went to an old time amusement park and rode the roller coaster. We walked around a park by the Golden Gate bridge and saw a cross section of the giant cable that holds up the bridge. We marveled at the double decker Bay bridge as we drove across it. Everyone ordered fish at Fisherman’s Wharf except Kathy who had a hamburger and Marita who ate half a canned peach with a scoop of cottage cheese for most meals.
Christmas Day was spent driving through the Giant Redwood Forest (Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon). There was lots of snow at the higher elevations. We could only find one restaurant open for noon dinner and they were serving cold turkey sandwiches. It was a very different (but still nice) Christmas for four Minnesota farm kids who were used to spending Christmas with lots of cousins and grandparents.

New Year’s Day we attended the Rose Bowl Parade. We were staying with one of Mom’s cousins in Burbank and had to get up very early to get a place to stand throughout the parade. We were right by the curb and had a wonderful view. It was an exciting experience watching the horses with beautiful silver ornamentation on the saddles and harnesses, the marching bands, and the floats covered with flowers. The Grand marshall of the parade was newly elected Vice President Richard Nixon with his wife and two young daughters. Afterwards while walking back to the car through the crowds of people, Kathy had several of the charms lost off her bracelet from brushing against so many people.
We stopped in both Reno and Las Vegas on that trip. We liked the name “Reno” and later named our new farm dog “Rene” after the city. Both cities were exciting to see with their big casinos, hotels, and flashy signs.
While in southern California we drove across the border into Tijuana, Mexico. We walked through the dusty open air markets and bought some souvenirs. Mom and the girls bought blue felted jackets with embroidery.
On the way to Texas we saw the Grand Canyon with its incredible views and colors. The drive across Arizona and New Mexico seemed to go on forever. I remember riding under the moonlight across the desert.
In Texas we visit our Rawle relatives who were related to my Grandma Ringkob (Mary Rawle) of English ancestry. The relatives lived on farms near Decatur with milk cows and pecan orchards. Their houses were old and very poorly insulated against the cool January weather. But the relatives were very hospitable and we had a fun time. We played a game in which you had to guess the number of pecans someone was holding in their hands. In he morning for breakfast they served us tall glasses of iced tea and fried potatoes. We had never seen iced tea! And fried potatoes were a supper food in Minnesota. It was cultural shock! In later years we heard that some of these relatives struck oil on their farms.

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| Our family with the Flatgaards (1954) |
We also visited Mom’s old high school friends Jeffrey and Auslaug Flatgaard in Dallas. Jeffrey was a pilot with Braniff and they lived in a nice brick house on Prestonshire Lane. They had four children about the same age as the four of us so we had a great time. Dad got to ride with Jeffrey in the cockpit on a late night flight to Houston. And I attended a “big city” grade school first grade class with their daughter Ruth. She and I became pen pals after that and we are still exchanging Christmas greetings nearly 60 years later.
Texas was part of the old segregated south in the 1950’s. I remember seeing so many black people in the rural areas sitting on their front porches with their legs dangling off the edge. Also there were the separate fountains marked “colored” and “white.” One time I headed to a “colored” fountain and Mom pulled me back. She explained to me why I couldn’t get a drink of water there. It seemed strange but we followed the rules.
After leaving Texas we headed north to Minnesota. It took two full days of driving on two lane highways to reach home. It was always good to be home again and we children would comment on how much better our water tasted at home from our well! The first thing we would do when we got out of the car when we got home was to yell and yell for our dog. We would be thrilled to see our pet dog again and she would be excited to see us too.
-Kathy
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| Family trip to Florida (1953) |
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