THE HILLMANNS OF BROOKLYN
CHAPTER 45
1932
Bermuda
It's April 1932. Marian is 22 years old. The family is off to Bermuda.
Marian is a school teacher, so it must be spring break or they must be generous in time off.
These three pictures were taken by the ship's photographer, it makes me smile to think they had to buy all three. That's something I would do, look at all three pictures of my daughter and think they are all so beautiful I have to buy all of them. This one is my favorite.
Marian tells us that on the steamer deck her mother, Rose, is a snug as a bug in a rug.
As you exit off the dock in Hamilton, Bermuda, sing "It Don't Mean A Thing If You Ain't Got That Swing" do wop do wop do wop, a hit song in 1932.
The Hillmanns stayed at the luxurious St. George Hotel.
The Hillmanns enjoyed a picnic with waiters in Bermuda. In New Jersey Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home.
The streets of Bermuda.
Rose with the banana tree. I don't know who the other woman is. Passport records show Bermuda was a frequent vacation destination for members of Rose's Siegele/Steffen clan, and she is photographed with Rose, but visually she looks like that unidentified cousin of Hermans that keeps popping up.
I have bananas in my yard, and I have learned that a banana tree is not a tree at all. A banana is a perennial. The "tree" dies as the fruit ripens. Thus is produces once. A banana is really a berry. More banana plants pop up around the original banana tree because it promulgates itself asexually under the ground.
Elbow Beach
We've seen the Hillmanns in steamers, cars, motorized trollies, horses. We saw Herman standing next to an airplane many chapters ago. In 1932 Amelia Earhart flew from the US to Ireland in 15 hours, progress was being made.
Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees was the first animated cartoon presented in technicolor.
Rose biking.
Marian biking.
Marian on the fence
Marian aboard the Monarche
The Monarche leaving Hamilton.
The Statute of Liberty, what a wonderful sight to see returning home. Hillmanns albums come out on Tuesdays, join us next week where we're back in New York City playing with Marian's friends.
