Florida

The train from Toledo to St. Petersburg in Florida took two days, but Leta did not mind, even though she had never traveled so far from home. Before this, the farthest she had been from her Ohio home was to Washington, DC when she and her former husband Claud Bassett had taken a rode trip in 1950. That trip was all sightseeing and took a week. This time, she would be gone for two weeks, and was traveling with her sister Louise. They were going to meet their sister Mabel and spend time visiting Louise’s son Paul. Their other sister Nellie was unable to go.

The three sisters had started to plan the excursion three years earlier, the last time Mabel had visited Toledo from Vancouver. Louise wanted to see her son and his family. Leta and Mabel wanted to see each other and Florida.

‘I always loved oranges,” Leta said. “Ever since I was a child. And in Florida you can pick them right off the tree.”

“You can do that in California, too,” her brother Aaron told her. As a young man, he had been to California. But that is also where their father had gone the first and second times he left the family, leaving Leta with a lifelong distaste of the place. On the other hand, Florida seemed much more exotic to her.

The conversation began with a conversation about Paul. Louise had received a postcard from one of her grandchildren, thanking her for a birthday gift. The picture showed an orange grove, and the child mentioned that they had visited one during a school field trip.

“Doesn’t that sound wonderful,” Leta said, “walking through an orange grove?”

“I would like to do that someday,” Mabel agreed wistfully.

“Some day?” their other sister Nellie inquired. “You’re nearly 70 years old. You don’t have that many somedays left.”

“That was mean, Nellie,” Mabel noted, “mean, but true.”

“We should just go there,” Leta declared.

“I’d love to see my son,” Louise added.

“Then why don’t we?” Mabel suggested.

They chatted for a while about how much they would enjoy traveling together—all four sisters—to Florida, enjoying fresh oranges, all the sunshine, and seeing an alligator.

“I hear that crocodiles can live in creeks, just outside of your back door!” Nellie gasped with a shiver. “You can’t even let your dogs or cats out, because they’ll eat them!”

“They’re alligators, I think,” Aaron interjected. He had stopped by on his way home from work to say hello. “Crocodiles are in Africa. Alligators are in Florida.”

“Thank you, Mr. Know-It-All,” Nellie said.

Actually, the sisters were more anxious about a giant man-eating reptile in the backyard than whether it was called a crocodile or alligator.

“You’ve seen too many Tarzan movies,” Aaron quipped. “Mostly, they stay away from people.”

Eventually, the women made their decision. Louise’s daughter Little Leta, unmarried and living with her parents, wanted to join them, but because they decided to escape the cold winter of Ohio and traveled in February, she had to stay behind to work. Nellie was also ailing and could not accompany them. The travelers ended up being Leta, Louise, and Mabel. Paul insisted that they stay with him, and they did, although it was a tight fit.

They spent three weeks there and finally returned home. Two months later, Mabel’s husband Floyd died, and she never traveled again.