My maternal grandmother had remarried and since Grandpa Farne worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, she had a pass to go anywhere in the country and she frequently did. Visiting us in many states and many times taking me back with her to visit in Pittsburgh for awhile. This was before I began working in the show. When plans were being made for the trip to South America, Mom and Pop asked me it I wanted to come along or stay with Grandma and Grandpa and go to school? It must have been the school part that did it, because I loved being with my grandparents, but I said no, I wanted to go along.
So with Thurston’s approval the show was ready to sail abroad again and on June 27th, 1927, we pulled away from Pier #82 in New York on our way to Puerto Rico.
Thurston went with us and was delighted with our opening. He even admitted to Pop that he thought the Dante show was better than his. When he left Puerto Rico to return to the States, it was the last time Pop ever saw him.
* * *
Along with all her other duties, Mom was our nurse and sometimes doctor and at this time took care of me when I had a bad case of whooping cough.
When the time came for us to leave for our next booking at La Guaira, Venezuela, Pop found that all ships were booked up for three months in advance. Se he thought the best plan was to hire a sailing vessel. Word got around and a Spanish captain came to the hotel. He was a good salesman, painting a fine picture of his three-masted schooner, the Gavieta, and the accommodations, so he was hired.
After everything was loaded and we went aboard, we found only one cabin and it was not very large. It also contained all of the food supplies.
The land disappeared from view and a storm came up. We were crammed like sardines in that cabin, including our animals. The Collie, a pig, ducks, geese and Sally the Rhesus monkey. We were glad the Russian Wolfhound was left in Puerto Rico. He was a purebred and a man who owned some others wanted him for breeding.
There were other passengers on board, including a woman with a six month old baby and a crew of three who couldn’t speak English.
The storm passed, thankfully, because this was the time of year for hurricanes and only then did my parents learn that the captain did not have a compass and we were lost.
We were becalmed and a voyage that should have taken four days, took ten. It was hot and we laid on army cots on the deck. Our toilet was a makeshift tent covered outhouse on deck with a kerosene tin inside.
We did not begin to feel alarmed until the food supply was about gone. So for several days we lived on Danish pancakes because we seemed to have plenty of flour and Pop had always specialized in this one particular dish.
When we finally made port, it was Curacao, the center of a group of West Indian Islands. So what did Dante do? He promptly arranged a booking in Curacao’s only theatre and we opened to a packed house the following night!
We made it next to Caracas, the capitol of Venezuela and played before Juan Vicente Gomes, the dictator. Then to La Guaira, Trinidad and Barbados.
We stayed at a very fine hotel in Bridgetown, Barbados. There was a large veranda on the second floor, overlooking the ocean and a cove that was roped off to form a swimming pool. On Saturday nights our family orchestra would play music on the veranda for dancing.
One afternoon our family had all been swimming in the pool. Mom got out first reminding everyone that it was time to get ready for work and went upstairs to her room that also overlooked the water. We girls followed soon after and then, just as the boys were getting out, Mom went to her window and looking down was horrified to see a shark swimming in the pool!
Next to Paramaribo, Surinam or Dutch Guiana, where we stayed at another beautiful hotel, such exquisite handmade linens on the tables and the service was unequaled.
Before we left Surinam we ventured inland on a riverboat to give a show for the natives on a sugar plantation. We traveled light, no big illusions, and the natives had to build a special stage for us to perform. They stacked sugar sacks and put boards on top of them! The real hardship was the enormous mosquitoes. Ruth and Dolly, who had never smoked before, were chainsmoking trying to chase the mosquitoes away.
We sailed on the S.S. Vestras, on our way to Rio de Janeiro. On this ship, the first-class passengers objected to those in second class (us) using the swimming pool. So the captain and his officers joined us when we went swimming.
We entered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro and had our first breathtaking view of the Sugar Leaf Mountain. We docked and Pop told us all to wait on board. He had previously cabled for a booking and received an answer saying. “No use for your services.”
Now he went in person to see the top impresario. When he returned he said, “We are all set.” All arrangements had been made, even for hotels, and we were to open in two days!
Before the opening, Pop told the theatre manager not to sell two specific seats needed for “plants.” Later we were asked which two seats had to be removed for the shrubbery!
We were there for Christmas, 1927, and enjoyed every minute in that beautiful city. We did a lot of sightseeing, even to the top of Corcovado where the work was just beginning on the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The only part visible emerging from the huge piece of marble was a thumb.
We were there a month, sold out every night, and after three weeks Pop was able to repay Thurston the twelve thousand dollars he had borrowed to help finance this tour.
When we left Rio, Dolly was in tears. She had met a very handsome young man named Joel and he had asked Pop for her hand in marriage. Of course he said no.
* * *
On to Santos then Sao Paulo where we saw our first Carnival or Mardi Gras. The costumed merrimakers dancing through the streets carried small glass vials with a top like an aerosol can that sprayed some icy substance that would immediately evaporate.
Next Porto Alegre, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. This was a most successful engagement. We did three shows a day except Sundays, matinee, a shorter show at six o’clock and then the evening performance, altogether two hundred and fifty shows.
Pop was very disturbed to learn that the theatre was in a red light district. Dolly recalls that it was a magnificent old theatre with several tiers of boxes encircling the auditorium, like the old opera houses. But on some levels there were rooms adjoining the boxes for more private “entertainment.” Dante went to the police department and asked for cooperation. Our show was always publicized as a family show, our matinees were packed with children. The amazing result was that even after we left, the theatre management continued the policy of entertainment suitable for families. Their business had never been so good.
An illusion that appealed to the children was our “Duck Tub.” A wooden tub, about six feet in diameter and two feet deep, resembling a wine keg cut in half and sitting on a thin (off the floor) platform, was wheeled on stage, tipped to show it was empty then filled with water. Dante clapped his hands – “Sim Sala Bim” – and ducks, about fifteen of them, would pop up out of the water! The ducks, with hardly any prompting, waddled off stage and in this theatre headed for a ramp that curved down into the basement, where their pen was set up.
We traveled next to Cordoba, Rosario, and then a return engagement to Buenos Aires.
Mails were not very reliable and sometimes letters would follow us around for weeks. It was because of this that many things put in storage in New York were lost at this time.
Our next jump was a long one, all the way to Germany. Dolly looked forward to this voyage with dread. Whenever Al would arrange for us to travel by boat, she would wail, “Isn’t there any other way to go?” She would always get so terribly seasick, and this trip was going to take twenty-nine days. Fortunately after about three or four days she would get her “sea legs” and would know that she was going to live!
We took a German freighter to Hamburg, not one of the finest ships afloat but there was an above deck swimming pool and on our first crossing of the Equator, there was the usual visit from King Neptune all a surprise to us and Pop was thrown into the pool with all his clothes on. Then we were all ceremonially presented with certificates stating that we had crossed the Equator.