The 1949 California Vacation Trip

Growing Up in Mid 20th Century America:
Chapter Four - The 1949 California Vacation Trip

Our family was scheduled to leave on a three week vacation to California early in June 1949. Our parents had lots of planning and packing to do but the first item on the agenda was the purchase of a new car. The Studebaker that was ordered was held up so dad decided to cancel that order and purchase a new Kaiser. Kaisers were new to the market in 1947 and the local dealer, Hannah Motor Sales, had a good supply in stock ready for purchase in 1949.

I remember vividly the whole family going to the showroom and my sister and I crawling into the huge and luxurious back seat of the very car we would buy while our parents signed papers to make the purchase. I was very excited because I had always loved autos and I understood we would be taking a long journey in this one. There was only a very small, gradual transmission hump on the rear floor plus limousine like width and legroom so kids could actually walk around in front of the rear seat. In addition, the rear seat was a bit raised higher than the front seat giving passengers better viewing. I don't think any other auto at the time had these advantages. My sister and I were very enthused about this new car. I still have the 4 color brochure of 1949 Kaisers that we received on that day. Part of it is reproduced in the pictures shown here.

One Saturday morning shortly after the purchase of the Kaiser my dad and I took a drive to Silver Creek, NY where there was an Army surplus store that had surplus machine gun motors for sale. My engineer father bought a couple of these items plus some electric doorbells from Sears as he had designed a cruise control system that he planned to install in his new Kaiser. He had no intention of driving 3000 miles across America with his foot on the accelerator all the way! So, within a week or two He had installed the cruise control. This was likely the only automobile in America in 1949 that actually had cruise control. No manufacturers offered such an option in those days.

The Prichard cruise control was kind of crude but it did work rather well. There were two door bell buttons mounted in a block of wood and attached to the steering wheel. A cable of some sort ran through the firewall and was attached to the linkage behind the accelerator as well as to the machine gun motors. The doorbell buttons were hooked up to the machine gun motors so that when you held down the top button it wound up the cable attached to the accelerator linkage to speed up the car and when you held down the bottom button it unwound the cable to slow down the car. This, in a way, was similar to today’s electronic cruise control as you can hold down the"speed up" or "slow down" buttons just like that today only there is one big difference. If you need to stop today’s cruise control quickly in heavy traffic or an emergency you merely tap the break pedal. In our 49 Kaiser you could not do that. You had to first throw the gear shift into neutral and then step on the brake pedal. That would certainly slow the car down but the engine would remain racing until you held the slow down button for several seconds to slow down the engine. Well, my mother did not care for that arrangement at all but since dad was doing the cross country drive all she could do was yell about it! Throughout the seven years we owned the Kaiser she would continually lobby to have him remove the cruise control. He did so from time to time, reinstalling at a later date sometimes!

Much thought was put into planning the trip. A portable kerosene cook stove was borrowed from Uncle Dean Ebbert, mom's youngest brother. Groceries were purchased and packed carefully and suitcases were packed. Great Aunt Myrtle was included in the trip also so she would be riding in the back seat with my sister and I. Busy activities were included for the kids, like books, coloring books, a few toys and car games. Dad had three weeks of vacation from Struthers so we would leave on a Monday morning, arriving in Los Angeles the following Saturday afternoon and staying in California for one week. We would leave on a Monday because dad always played the pipe organ for church on Sundays and did not want to miss more than one or two Sundays. After church on that Sunday morning before we left on the trip, he and I went to Mac’s News as usual to buy The Philadelphia Inquirer as well as the weekly issue of the Saturday Evening Post that we always purchased. I remember how excited I was when he said to me, go pick out as many comic books as you want for the trip! Wow, it was like winning the lottery - although of course I had never heard of a lottery. Now I know it was like winning the lottery. Comic books were also one of my favorite things. I bought quite a stack, probably 30 brand new comic books at $.10 each - the price in 1949.

Each morning that we traveled we would be in the car driving at 4 am. Usually we would drive for three hours and then stop at a public park or roadside picnic table for breakfast. Mom would cook a big breakfast of bacon and eggs on the kerosene stove. The we would quickly pack up and be on the road again. I think we probably had sandwiches for lunch in the car and then the motel hunt would start at 4 pm. I could not yet read a clock but I was very aware of what the time of day meant. There were very few expressways in 1949. All roads went through towns. That did make it fairly easy to find motels which were commonly tourist cabins in those days, at least in the eastern states. The first real motel we stayed at was in a western state, possibly Colorado. We never called ahead for reservations because we never knew just where we might end up each day or what facilities would be there. National chains did not have directories like today and there was no Internet. All we had were telephones but you would not really know who to call since you didn’t know what town you would end up in. Quite an adventure it was!

The Kaiser performed admirably with never a problem. Once we were in the west, some states had no speed limits in those long ago days. Dad’s cruise control held the Kaiser 90 and 95 miles per hour mile after mile through the flat western states. On steep mountain climbs the Kaiser pushed up the grades with never a hint of overheating while we passed by many Chevies, Fords, and Plymouths that were pulled off to the side of the road to cool down. When crossing the desert through Arizona we stopped and purchased dry ice which dad wrapped in towels which he then hung from the back seat windows. The dry ice exuded cold air all the way to California so it was like the car had air conditioning which very few cars actually had in 1949.

I still remember the excitement of our arrival at Uncle Arnold and Aunt Virginia’s ranch style home in Sunland, California. First impression, It was very, very hot! Must have been 90 degrees. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon at the one floor ranch style home that Uncle Arnold had built a few years previously. Aunt Virginia offered to serve iced tea, something I was not familiar with. I decided to try it and found it quite good. It was our first experience in a one floor home and our father was very impressed with the idea. Being an engineer, he was fond of “practicality” in all things. This idea would result in his drawing plans for a one floor ranch home once we returned to Pennsylvania. That home was never built but in future years we would buy a story and a half home and then finally a one floor ranch home.

In a day or two we all went out to Malibu to the beach. In the photo you can see us unloading the Kaiser for a day at the beach. In 1949 everybody just parked along the road to go to the beach. Today it is more organized with parking lots provided for all the official beaches. The Kaiser was such a huge car that we were able to drive out to Malibu with everyone in one car, six kids and 4 adults. I don’t remember if Aunt Myrtle went to the beach and possibly Arnold’s older two boys didn’t go, but the Kaiser could seat 4 adults across the front and rear bench seats. I can remember sitting between my dad and the driver’s door several times when we had many people in the car. Never heard of a child seat in those days! The following weekend my dad, his brother Arnold and Arnold’s three boys went to the mountains where Arnold and the third brother Reno Prichard were building a vacation cabin. I could not go because I had pinched a finger in a roll away folding bed during the week and my finger was still healing. I was quite disappointed not to be able to go.

The vacation week ended and we loaded up the Kaiser for the return trip to Pennsylvania. Another six days of roadside cabins and motels with many picnics at public parks saw us arriving back in Warren, PA three weeks after having left home. The following year, 1950, Uncle Arnold Prichard brought his wife and four children to Pennsylvania for a visit. I remember riding my tricycle down to the nearest main street to watch for their arrival for several days. As it happened though they arrived at night so I was not on the corner to greet them.