FOURTEEN

A SPECIAL DELIVERY

Aloha arrived in Detroit in August 1925 and found a bustling industrial city, swirling with jazz and dancing on the promise of its bright future. Immigrants from around the world had flocked to fill jobs on assembly lines and management offices. It was the town where cars were not only made but also driven — there were as many automobiles as families.1 It was, in other words, the ideal city in which to wind up the Million Dollar Wager.

When the expedition’s cars rolled through town, they were accompanied by the sirens of a police escort and a storm of tickertape thrown by cheering well-wishers. Theatres and businesses clamoured for the expedition’s attention, offering free lodging, extended bookings, and product samples. And then there were the newspapers. San Francisco’s dailies had turned up their noses at the little troupe, but Detroit’s papers celebrated the achievements of the Motor City cars that had conquered the world.

 

There was much fun with newspaper rivalries — especially knock out competition between The News and Free Press.

To the Free Press we gave first exclusive on foreign stills in return for their Sunday rotogravure.

The Detroit News sent their limousine to pick us up for our first ever radio broadcast. We were ceremoniously ushered to a private office with an elaborate microphone disk suspended on the desk; were humbly requested by the editor not to mention the car’s maker — “That would constitute advertising; you’ll understand that, won’t you?” Indeed we did!2

 

Naturally, as soon as the interview started Aloha entirely forgot not to use the “F” word, but her enthusiastic recounting of their intrepid international adventures quickly assuaged any annoyance. The Ford company was understandably thrilled.

 

The chief was delighted. On the way out, however, he let another “cat out of the bag.”

“Well, we sure scooped the Free Press!”

To our disgust we had unwittingly fouled up our promise of first exclusive to the arch rival.3

 

The error did not seem to spoil their coverage in the Free Press, though the subtitle was a touch mocking: “Wife Is Sister Too!” followed by an explanation that Walter had been “adopted” by Aloha’s mother. Ersatz headlines aside, it was the best coverage the expedition had received in America. Large photographs in the August 16 issue of the Detroit Times show Walter and Aloha gazing at each other with proud smiles, while behind them large crowds gather around the flag-draped Unit N^o II. The headline reads, “Wandering Wanderwells Are Home.”

*

Amid the hubbub, several crew members quit while new ones were hired. A few who had failed to meet Walter’s high performance expectations were sent home. But even this hardly mattered. The Wanderwell Expedition had, for the moment, captured Detroit’s imagination, and Aloha and Walter were booked from sun-up until sundown, giving interviews or “bicycling” theatre engagements — showing at two venues simultaneously.

 

Running the shop at my end pretty well, I basked in publicity’s glare . . . hounded for autographs through the lobby, stairs, outside to the (police) escort; rushed at theatres, mobbed in department stores by not always appreciative strangers — many gawkers. I gave up receiving reporters in the lobby . . . got on my high horse, too high hat to receive, except by special appointment, there were so many curiosity seekers — many bunkum artists. Adulation went to my head.4

 

The times were good all around. The country was in the mood to celebrate its achievements. American business was booming, Babe Ruth was batting, the Goodyear Blimp was flying, and in South Dakota a Danish-American sculptor wanted to carve the likeness of famous American presidents into Mount Rushmore. Soon after Detroit, Aloha began billing herself as the World’s Most Widely Travelled Girl. She became the face of the Wanderwell Expedition, the main voice and authority quoted in newspapers. Walter supported Aloha’s growing renown, but he also reminded her that this was the expedition’s success and all of it a stepping stone to something greater.

*

A tentative meeting with Henry Ford was arranged through Ford’s chief assistant Ernest Liebold. Walter and Liebold had exchanged a number of letters over the years, including the recent acceptance of Unit N^o II as a gift to the Ford museum. Now Walter wanted to meet the man, to outline his idea for an international police. Aloha wondered if he would ask for Ford’s endorsement, but Walter said, “I’m not going to ask him anything. I’m going to listen to him.”5

While Walter waited to meet Ford, the crew continued to work the town, selling pamphlets in the streets, collecting signatures for a new international police petition, and signing on new WAWEC members. To forestall the possibility of more police interference, Walter secured a letter of welcome written on the letterhead of Police Commissioner F.H. Croul and signed by the deputy superintendent:

 

This is to certify that Cars WAWEC 2, 3, 4 and 9 are in Detroit.

We are glad to extend them the courtesy of the city after their absence of four years.

Trusting the officers will cooperate with them while in the city, and wishing them success, I am,

 

Very truly yours,

James Sprott.6

 

“The Chief of Police assigned two motorcycle escorts, 8 am and 6 pm. They picked us up at The Book [Hotel], enabling Cap . . . to skip through traffic on business errands. Yours truly or our ad canvassers shared the second escort.” Before long, there were twenty full-time crew members and two new vehicles, including a massive armoured vehicle built on a truck chassis and referred to as “the Tank.” The days were so full and the hours so long that Aloha and Walter hardly saw each other, except to sleep or go over the next day’s itineraries. And then, Aloha began to falter.

On the morning of Walter’s meeting with Henry Ford, Dolly Reynolds found Aloha bent over the hotel toilet, “throwing up water, bran flakes and fruit.” She was sent to bed, where Dolly fed her spoonfuls of peppermint syrup. After a short nap, Aloha was up and dressed again, determined to accompany Walter. By noon, however, she realized she was not well enough to make the trip and, rather than risk evacuating on Mr. Ford’s desk, decided to stay at the hotel after all. “We dashed down to the chauffeur and he was off. Standing alone at the lobby curb I had a momentary vision; some day [sic] I should have a Lincoln.”7

Walter’s meeting, originally scheduled to last fifteen minutes, lasted more than an hour — a fact that Aloha trumpeted proudly. “Cap’s exuberance usually bowls people over, so evidently, the great industrialist. When Cap’s allotted time was up, the Yes-man came to alert but Mr. Ford waved the annoyance away.”⁸ The two men discussed the trip around the world, Aloha’s record-setting stretches, and the presence of Ford dealerships around the globe. Mr. Ford told Walter, “You know more of our agents than any man on earth. You know firsthand more what they think of us than anybody in the Ford Company.”9 Ford was particularly interested in the photos of Units N^o II and III on the Vladivostok parade grounds. He had stakes in the burgeoning Russian automotive industry but knew that sales there would be impeded so long as drivable roads were scarce. Walter suggested that modified car designs might go a long way towards speeding the process. Ford was keen to know exactly how the Wanderwell cars had been modified: “gravity feed, deep foot pits, solid disk wheels, built-in trunk, with a hatch entrance on chains [that could serve] as a bench. Ruckstell gears, grip grooved Tilt-Lock steering wheel,”10 and Walter’s soon-to-be-patented Speed Slope body design.

For his part, Walter was deeply impressed by Ford, even if the meeting did not achieve all he had hoped. On immigration documents filed in San Francisco, Walter had claimed that the aim of their trip across the United States was to reach Detroit, where they would join the Ford Motor Company staff. That dream never materialized, nor did his wish for Ford’s public endorsement of the international police. Instead, Ford stressed that businesses should remain steadfastly apolitical. “He told me I should keep free, put the work in the hands of energetic young mixed nationalities, keep free of big politicians, big financiers. Then he went on to tell me [that] sponsoring our work is out of the question ‘unless you want to be hogtied to company schedules and overseers.’ I said, ‘No, sir!!’”11

When the interview ended, Walter was more determined than ever to grow his organizations, to make their achievements and ideals known to the leaders of industry and politicians around the world. As Aloha put it, “The visit had been a shining day for Cap. Any day of his life he would have traded a ‘World’s Fair’ for this . . . . It was journey’s end; the ORACLE, sage of industry had endorsed our way of life. Nothing finer than to give us his benign blessing and our total independence.”¹²

*

The World’s Most Widely Travelled Girl had persevered through deserts, mud, heat, storms, and war. Pregnancy was, however, a different kind of challenge. After three weeks in Detroit she was too ill to give lectures, conduct interviews, or sell postcards, much less drive anywhere.

 

The doctor told Cap I had colitis and prescribed sending me away to a sunny climate until my time, saying, “I can’t do anything more for her.” That sounded desperate to me and [I thought] I’d better get my chin up.

Later Cap announced, “You’re going to Miami on Thursday by train with Reynolds, you can rest in comfort there until after the baby arrives. Sorry I can’t go with you but I’ll be there as soon as the outfit is actually organized on tour.”13

 

With Dolly in tow, Aloha boarded an “express” to Miami and spent the next forty hours and thirty-seven stops sitting in a train car, pining for a steering wheel. But by the time the smoky hills of Tennessee gave way to the flat green of Georgia and the little palm trees started just south of Homerville and the first twinkles of blue caught her eye at St. Augustine, she could barely contain the impulse to get out and explore. Even the air had changed, now warm and soft, and yet not at all like the South of France. This was another new world and she was ready to throw herself into the arms of adventure. Getting off at the wrong station, they found themselves in a bad part of town at the wrong time of day. There were no hotels so they were forced to spend the night in what Aloha called a “hot-pillow sporting house” (courtesy of a compassionate madam). Aloha refused to be discouraged. She was soon hiking, swimming, sailing, and touring the Miami area, including Coral Gables and the riverfront property that Walter had purchased six years earlier.

Aloha was proud of her regained vitality, especially because she was pregnant. Like many women of the time, Aloha made use of stomach-smoothing corsets to conceal her state.14 By 1925 the medical profession had begun warning women of the dangers of “maternity corsets,” but they were still widely sold and routinely used. A 1922 ad for Ferris Maternity Corsets asked women, “Will yours be a ‘good’ baby?” and explained how selecting the correct corset was vital to ensuring the birth of a happy, healthy, chubby, and gurgling baby.15 In one respect, the devices were clearly effective: in no photograph does Aloha appear obviously pregnant.

*

It would be two months before Walter joined her, arriving in late November, one month before the baby was due. He had spent his time, he said, organizing and training a WAWEC unit to work the Eastern Seaboard. As usual, his arrival heralded a flurry of intense activity. Within a week he had purchased a newly constructed houseboat that Aloha set about decorating and preparing for the baby’s arrival.

By December 16 Aloha was too shy to be seen in public but still went for walks after sunset. To her horror, she had begun losing bladder control and was afraid to drink anything in the late hours of the day. Then, on 19 December, Aloha had pain throughout her body and became incoherent. By one account, she had slipped on the deck of a boat days earlier, possibly causing complications.16 She was rushed to the Jackson Memorial Hospital where doctors feared she might be haemorrhaging.

Walter and Aloha’s first child was born shortly past 9:00 a.m. on December 20.

Aloha was not well enough to return home until the fifteenth of January, when she managed to walk “unaided down the river path, feet slithering in shoes . . . weighing 95 pounds, Mum’s new frock flapping from my bony shoulders.” Signs strung across the tent buildings read “Welcome Home Little Wanderer.” At the age of nineteen, after more than three years on the road, Aloha had finally arrived at a place she could call home. More than 3,000 miles from Qualicum Beach, she had reinvented the world her mother had known only a few years earlier: homesteading near the water with a boat, a young husband, and a new baby girl.

They named her Valri, after Walter’s true given name, Valerian, meaning valiant and brave. It seemed to fit. Less comprehensible was their choice of middle name: Nell. Even in light of a continued friendship or of gratefulness for a divorce granted, it’s hard to understand how Aloha could have permitted her first-born to bear the name of her husband’s former wife. But she did. Many decades later, the authors asked Valri about her middle name. She simply shrugged and shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.”17

Aloha and Walter settled into a sleep and feeding schedule with young Valri, and the baby thrived. Aloha cherished those first days at home.

 

That lovely lazy tropical family existence with books and recuperations and Cap and Valri all to myself — a fascinating chapter of “Life with Baby.” Walking, nursing, boating, proudly watching our daughter develop, arguing [with] Reynolds about her care, fresh air, sunshine, swimming.18

 

It was a short-lived idyll, for the road beckoned. Just three weeks later young Valri would be left with Reynolds while Walter and Aloha put together a new expedition.