Swiss Diary of Ruth Stoeckly

Swiss Diary of Ruth Crawford April 14, 1932 – September 7, 1934 Edited by James Logan Crawford CONTENTS Page FOREWORD...............................................................................v Chapter 1 Meeker....................................................Apr 14, 1932.................1 2 Garden City, Chicago, NYC....................Aug 2, 1932...............23 3 Atlantic Ocean, France...........................Aug 25, 1932...............31 4 Switz.: Zofingen, Rothrist, Thun............Sep 18, 1932...............43 5 Italy, Menziken, Basel, Langenthal........Dec 26, 1932...............73 6 Mountain Climbing, Winterthur.................Jul 1, 1933.............115 7 University of Zurich.................................Sep 1, 1933.............137 8 Geneva, Biking, England, Home...........May 19, 1934.............163 Appendix 1 Garden City Girl Writes Of Holiday Trip Through Italy..........185 2 Swiss Farmers Have Some Strange Customs...........................187 3 A Glimpse of London as Seen by a Garden City Girl...............193 4 Miss Ruth Stoeckly Tells of Her Interesting European Tour....197 Copyright 2011 by James Logan Crawford Last Modified May 13, 2012 www.CrawfordPioneersOfSteamboatSprings iii iv FOREWARD Growing up, Mom never told me anything about her past life. Of course I knew about all of the Stoeckly relatives - after all, we had a photo on our wall of the 1954 reunion with all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins. And I knew Mom grew up in Garden City, met Dad at the U. of Colorado, and spent a year in Switzerland with the relatives and at the U. of Zurich, but those and other ran- dom facts I'm sure I learned from Dad or my siblings (such as the time I was helping Dad hammer something in his shop and he mentioned that Mom once won first place in a nail-pounding con- test). The only things I ever remember Mom saying about her past were 1) the heat and dust at Poston were terrible, 2) the cold and wind at Belcourt were perhaps worse, and 3) the hardest part about living on the reservations was the thought that the family might have to live there forever. And it wasn't as if there was no opportunity to tell me anything. I spent 6 weeks at Stevens Tech. in Hoboken, N.J., on the cliffs overlooking the Hudson across from the piers in mid-Man- hatten, and within sight of Pier 84 where Mom got on a ship to start her Swiss trip. We used to sit on the lawn on a Sunday after- noon in a carnival type atmosphere to watch the biggest ships, the QEII and the Queen Mary, slowly go by, and I certainly took photos and sent letters describing the ships. I also climbed the Statue of Liberty, went to the top of the Empire State Building, rode the subway, took a tour boat on the Hudson, and saw some Broadway plays, all of which Mom also did, but not once did Mom ever even mention being in New York. And I went to Europe for the summer when I was 21, and spent a week in Lon- don, and a week in Paris, and a half week in Rome, all of which Mom also did, and which again I never knew about. Maybe Mom just kept quiet because she knew a little secret that none of us knew. She knew that tucked away in one of her trunks was a little brown book, a diary, in a very fine leather cov- er that would protect the contents for decades, and that one day, one of us would pull it out, and pull out with it her U.S. Passport and a couple hundred old photographs and scores of picture post- v cards. And this diary would tell us more stories about her big ad- venture than she could possibly remember even if she was of a mind to talk about the past. And this little diary has plenty of stories to tell! Mom was a very social woman! She had 3 serious men during this time: Earl in Meeker, Hans on the boat, and Dr. Frame at the U. of Zurich. But in addition she socialized with quite a few other men, both relatives and non-relatives, dancing, strolling, having tea, and partying with beer and wine. She was up after midnight numerous times, and once was at a party Sat. night and didn't get to bed until 6:30 Sunday morning. She also did not let being a woman stop her. She won the majority of her chess games (all against men), rode horseback with an all-male cavalry group, and climbed a mountain roped up as the only fe- male. She showed an enormous amount of energy, reminiscent of Sharon's many pursuits, as she played tennis, swam, hiked, biked (several 100 mile days), fished, rode horseback, camped, skied (at least once 24 km back to the train station at the end of the day), and mountain climbed. One final thing must be mentioned before starting on her journey. What are perhaps the two most important pieces of info that everybody should know about themselves? Name and birthday are an obvious answer to the question. Mom wrote her official name on checks as "H. Ruth Crawford", which was short for Hildegard Ruth Crawford. And she told us her birthday was ori- ginally celebrated on March 17, but was actually March 16. Well, one way or another, she is wrong. If you consider the real truth to be her State of Kansas birth certificate, her name is Ruth Hilde- gard Crawford born at 11:45 p.m. on March 16, 1910. If you consider the real truth to be the Swiss register book that was main- tained in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland, with all of the de- tails of Eugen T. Stoeckly's marriage and children, then her name is Hildegard Ruth Stoeckly, born March 17th, 1910 at 11:45 p.m. So maybe Mom just felt that if the official records couldn't even have her name and birth correct, it was better to not bring up any of the past. I have transcribed Mom's 5-year diary, using her punctuation and spelling as much as possible. I fixed obvious typos and tried vi to make the text flow smoothly, while still keeping her unique spelling for some words such as “staid” (stayed). Occasionally I have added explanatory comments in brackets [ ], or indicated words I could not decipher with [?]. I also added the chapter heading and photographs. Captions are Mom's words written on back of photograph. Note that the dates on photographs often do not match the dates in the diary (which I have enclosed in [ ] to indicate the discrepancy. Since she often filled in her diary one or two weeks after-the-fact, it could be wrong at times; but she also probably annotated the photographs weeks later, so they are probably more likely to be wrong. Mom mentions quite a few people and places in her diary. I have made a Jaeggy family tree to help keep the Swiss relatives straight. Most of the people mentioned in Meeker are friends, col- leagues, or neighbors, the most important of which are Mary and Favre Eaton, a married couple Mom stayed with at Ute Creek, and Earl (last name unknown), who was Mom's special boyfriend at the time. To help understand all of the places Mom visited, I have cre- ated a number of Google maps with markers to show the various places Mom mentions in her diary. Jim Crawford March 2011 vii October 3, 1930. Dear Folks: I live just catty-corner the 2nd house from the corner in the direction that the arrow indicates. The church is just one big room without even a basement. The mountains behind are about a quarter of a mile away. I have almost climbed to the top of the one on the right. Will write more tomor- row. Love, Ruth viii Chapter 1. Meeker 1932. Apr 14 Thur. Six weeks test. For the last time perhaps! Apr 15 Fri. Six weeks papers all graded before I left the building! Apr 16 Sat. Alarm at 5:45 - but no response - or it didn't register. How about the C.F. [Campfire] hike at 6:00? Just half an hour late & all the girls were gone! I trailed them up above the tank. Breakfast of egg toast & bacon. Slept for an hour on the hillside. Went for stake fry with Gladys & Gereldine Dixon & rest of girls at noon to Wilburn bridge. And once more for a wen- nie fry with Mary & Favre [Eaton, husband and wife] & Earl about 15 miles up Buford Road. Apr 17 Sun. Shucks its cloudy! Drove with Earl up to Buford. Had lunch there & returned middle of P.M. - Went over to Eaton's, staid for supper - and played cards till 8:30. Oh! the joy of friends. Apr 18 Mon. It is hard to come down to earth after such a wonderful week-end. Met a wonderful old man - a Mr. Ryland with twinkly eyes & prospector at heart - took my Gen. Sc. class to see his rock collection. Apr 19 Tue. Played contract [bridge] at Margaret O. - was on winning side Apr 20 Wed. Apr 21 Thur. Apr 22 Fri. Excitement all day - preparations being made for the Big Rube Barn Dance. To go or not to go? Girls make up your minds! A suggestion was made at supper to wear sunbon- nets & ginham dresses or overalls & black cardboard derbys & go in a bunch. We went to the show "Are These Our Children" and came home feeling much subdued. Half the party changed their minds but Jenny & I went dressed as planned.

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