New Zealand | circa 1953 |
Description:
To find New Zealand trees growing in the grounds of the Santa Barbara Mission, California, was a pleasant surprise for a Wellington traveller in America, Mrs. Alice Smith.
Mrs. Smith left New Zealand by air a little more htan a year ago and was met in San Francisco by her daughter, Olga (formerly New Zealand breaststroke champion), now Mrs. Orvil Walker, of Oakland, California, where Mrs. Smith spent the greater part of her time in America.
Outstanding memories are visits to Mt. Palomar and the Palomar Observatory, 5500 feet above sea level, and to Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada range at 6382 feet.
Soon after her arrival in America Mr. and Mrs. Walker took Mrs. Smith by car about 900 miles north to Elgin, Oregon to see another daughter, Gladys, and her husband, Mr. Ellis McGee. She also met for the first time two grandchildren, Karen and David McGee.
The return to Oakland was made through the State of Washington, west to the Pacific along the Columbia River, and down through the 2000-year-old redwood trees of Northern California.
Now back in New Zealand, Mrs. Smith's other daughters, Mrs. Doris Crawford, of Napier, Mrs. Shirley Burdan of Northland, and Mrs. Prue Faulke, of Wainui-o-mata, are busy catching up on her travel news.
