| Leaving San Pedro on a slow moving cargo ship from Sweden, we finally reached the Panama canal at weeks end. Seeing playfull porpoise accompaning the boat and water spouts in the warmer equatorial waters gave visual memories to keep. After another two weeks through the Panama canal, a stormy Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ccean, we were met by Tante "Flip" and Uncle Carl at a London dock side. We met our English grandmother and the rest of the family in Birmingham. Enjoying tea and cmmpets with them, we soon felt at home. It was with regret that we departed for Belgium where we were to live and go to school. |  |
| Left to right: Alan
Marcussen, Suzanne Dallons, Joy Marcussen,John A. Dallons Seated - John Rollason, Elizabeth Rolleson |
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In Charlerol (Charleroy), we again met many relatives, Great Uncles, cousins and our Great Grandmother. We enjoyed wonderful cakes, dancing In the streets, and cooking over a wood burning stove. The Dallons clan all lived on one street. Then it was off to Mons, where my sister and I stayed in a Pensionnat to attend a girls school where we learned a fair amount of French. My brother John, also in a school for boys became very ill and in 1936, just before Christmas, we left school to spend a very somber Holiday at "Uncle Louie's". |
| Seated: Stephanie (BASTIN) Dallons Standing: Lillian, Suzan, John F. and John A. Dallons |
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We then stayed near Cannes, France until he was well enough to travel south through Italy seeing not only many famous spots such as Pompeii with its political propaganda of the times still showing on its ruins but also the modern fascist propaganda on many city walls of the 1930's. Also to be seen were the black-shirts of the Fascist Youth Organization. We would often see off the coast of Italy an Amencan warship keeping an eye on the political trouble brewing in Europe. On March 12,1938, while in Switzerland, we heard the news that Germany had invaded Austria so our next destination was Paris to make reservations for a ship back to America. The port of departure for us was Dover, England and the start of a well remembered adventure! As Dover was a submarine base, we were to meet the French ship Normandie out in the English Channel in small boats but because of a very dense fog it was impossible to find her. We returned to land and stayed the rest of the night in the foyer of a hotel sleeping on any available chair or sofa. In the morning we boarded a train going to the south of England to again take small boats out of Portsmouth and to finally meet the Normandie, the ship that took us home. We children would often wend our way through many corridors to the first class section to see a movie orto use the swimming pool; once we ran into no other than former President Hoover. Ours was the last trip this grand ship took. In 1939 World War II began in Europe and while the Normandie was being refitted to carry troops she was destroyed by fire at dock side in 1942 in the port of New York. "It was not a boat that sank but a piece of French soil. The Normandie was the symbol and myth of a nation, France". Quoted from Lacarrier, Claude Gardin. It so happened that the first part of France to be liberated in World War II was the province of Normandy. S Dallons |