Moving up the Coast

In late 1968, Bob had orders to fly out to the Philippines and board the aircraft carrier Intrepid. The Intrepid was going around the horn, and back to Norfolk which was its home port, but then it was immediately going into the Philadelphia shipyard.

When we arrived in Key West in October 1966, we had three cars (a VW bus and two 1932 Plymouths) and two children ages 5 and 3 (so neither of them was driving yet).

I had a third daughter in May 1968 in Key West.

Bob had bought a house trailer frame, and built a garage on it for one of the antique Plymouths (the one that didn't have a top or a reliable radiator).

Building a garage on a house trailer frame

Finished car trailer in the driveway

Loading the 1932 Plymouth

Then he bought a little half ton Chevy pickup to tow the garage trailer with.

Bob working on the hitch

So In November he took the middle girl B. (age 5 in kindergarten)

Our daughter B - 5 years old

and drove north with the pick-up hauling the garage trailer.

Trailer hitched to truck

He also had with him the Christmas presents including a painting I had done for my Dad of the church he attended as a child.

Original painting which was lost

Other than the difficulty he had with bathrooms in gas stations (sometimes he had to ask a random female to go check on B) they had only one really memoriable incident.

One of the wheels came off of the trailer and rolled off into the woods. They couldn't find it. Fortunately the spare on the pick-up fitted the trailer axle, although when he put the wheel on the shackle had flipped around so the trailer was skewed. When Bob got to Maryland, he dropped the trailer off at his mother's house, and took the truck and B. (and the Christmas presents ) to my mother.

My mother put the presents away. She put the painting away so carefully that we did not find it until we were selling the house after she died in 2007, and I had to paint another one for him.

The second painting

Mother loved the pick up and she would driver her contemporaries to meetings - she had a little step stool so they could get into the truck.

Bob flew back to Key West. He and I and the other two children drove the 1932 Plymouth up to Maryland.

Daughter D (age 7-second grade) and baby E in back of Plymouth

When we were on 7 mile bridge, south of Marathon, the Plymouth stopped running.

7 mile bridge from Pigeon Key

So I got into the driver's seat and steered and Bob pushed. Fortunately we were near the end of the bridge so we coasted down to Pigeon Key, where Bob fixed the Plymouth.

Bob fixing the Plymouth

The Plymouth stopping made me a little nervous and it was getting late in the year so we were a little afraid of snow or ice, but we made it all the way to my mother's house. We found a garage near my mother's house in Towson where we could store the Plymouth, and we went up to Philadelphia and found a house to rent in the Philadelphia suburb of Folcraft. I also had to buy winter coats for the older girls. I had winter clothes, and the baby E had snowsuits, but the other two had been living in California and Florida since they were under three years old, so they didn't have any coats.

Three kids

We had Christmas at my mother's house

E with my mother opening a package

My dad with E and cousin George

Bob left to fly to the Philippines, and the children and I flew back to Key West

Flying back to Key West

My parents also came down too to help me move but they came on the train and bus because my mother didn't like to fly..

B and my dad teaching E to crawl

The movers packed me out

E after the movers have left

And we all got into the VW bus to try to get to Philadelphia before he did.

My dad with the kids in the VW driving north

I knew from previous moves that there would be less damage to our furniture if it didn't have to go into storage. So we drove as fast as we could (with 3 children) but we didn't even get out of Florida the first night. The second day we stopped in Henderson to see family. Fortunately the mover had to go to Pensacola to pick up another load, and we did make it up there in time.

The house we rented was a 2 story townhouse with a basement. I had made a scale drawing of the rooms and I had little paper scale drawings of the furniture so I knew where everything went. We didn't have to move any furniture after they left. I wanted them up unpack too, but while they would take stuff out of boxes, they woulcn't put it away, so when the kitchen counters got full, they stopped. They hooked up the washer in the basement, but they forgot to attach the drain hose. Fortunately my dad was able to do that for me.

It was January and cold. The first thing I had to do was go to Sears and buy a drier (I had just hung the clothes on clotheslines in Key West) I also had to get an inspection sticker for the VW - it had Pennsylvania plates but had never been in Pennsylvania before.

I don't know exactly when the ship got to the shipyard in Philadephia.

Philadelphia shipyard in 2005

When it did, Bob went and retrieved the car he left in the garage in Towson. He needed it to get to work. He left Chevy pick-up and the trailer with the other Plymouth at his mothers because we had no place to put it.