As I drive around the country, observing the landscape wherever I am, I try to imagine what that landscape might have looked like to my ancestors as they drove through the same areas. As I listen to the news while I’m driving, I try to imagine the news stories that my ancestors were paying attention to while they were on their trip. Today I offer a couple of thoughts and reflections about the 1938 historical context and some of the parallels I see in the present.

The Threat of War

Each day I listen to the news with growing dread about what is happening in Israel and Gaza. The display of brutality, unspeakable horror, and pathological hatred is hard to wrap my head around. I will not pretend to understand any of the complexities of the conflict which has been going on for so many years, but my heart aches with fear for what may happen in the near future. Too many innocent lives have already been broken forever and the prospect of ever reaching a peaceful settlement seems to be drifting further and further away. I worry for my friends on both sides of the conflict who have loved ones in the danger zones and hope that they will be safe. But this is the kind of ugly conflict that can change a person, and not necessarily in a good way. I am more and more anxious every day.

There was a parallel in 1938, as Hitler was rising in power and influence and accelerating his expansion of oppressive policies towards Jews. While Hitler was trying to build his empire by eliminating an entire population, other countries were trying to pretend that things weren’t as bad as they actually were. Under pressure to do something, President Roosevelt called a conference in July of that year in France and 32 countries attended. They spent a lot of time talking about how sympathetic they were towards the Jews who were fleeing Europe. However, when it came to the question of accepting Jewish refugees, they all had excuses why they could not accept any more. We now have the lens of history to forever remind us of the horrendous consequences of those early denials and shameful policy decisions.

I am sure that the Larsons were aware of what was going on in Europe and Germany, and they were probably wondering then, as I am now, where it was all going to lead and to what extent the United States would be involved, either in diplomatic peace efforts or in actual war. I’m also sure they were keeping track of events overseas while they were having their trip of a lifetime. I am also having a trip of a lifetime, but at the same time I’m keeping an eye on what is happening around me and overseas and hoping that our President will find a way to help steer both sides off the cliff of no return.

The Depression

In 1938 the Great Depression was still in full swing, but there had been several years of New Deal efforts to stem the tide and put people back to work. The legacy of those public works projects still remain today: bridges, dams, highways, libraries, airports, schools, parks, among many others. Despite those efforts, however, large numbers of people were still suffering in 1938. “Hoovervilles” still existed, and there was a great migration of tens of thousands of families from Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas to sunny, lush California. These families had lost everything in the Dust Bowl years and fled those states in an effort to start fresh elsewhere. When they got to California, however, the displaced families were not welcomed and they found it very difficult to get their feet back on the ground.

At the height of the Depression in 1933, 25% of the American population was unemployed. By 1938 this number had gone down, but there would have been evidence of the devastated lives pretty much everywhere the Larsons went, I’m sure of it. With unemployment that high, people were on the move looking for work, but opportunities were nonexistent no matter where they went.

As I have been driving through the country and sticking to the smaller roads whenever possible, especially in cities, I have been witness to the modern day version of the “Hooverville.” Encampments of people with no place to go, cardboard shacks hidden in the back streets and alleyways, and tents and shopping carts set up under the viaducts of the big highways that make it possible to pretend that the people eking out their lives underneath don’t exist. When you are taking the back roads, you see evidence of unhoused people everywhere, both in the country and in the cities. It is impossible to ignore, and I’m sure that was the case in 1938 when there was no option to take the bypass around or over a city.

I guess for me, these daily reminders that not everyone has an easy life is an important way to stay connected to the world, all of it and not just the nice and easy parts of it. Like me, the Larsons were privileged and had the means to take this trip, and they clearly enjoyed it to the fullest. I am enjoying my trip to the fullest as well, but I still feel a strong need to acknowledge the fact that not everyone has what I have. For whatever it’s worth, I choose not to ignore it and I respect the persons who successfully get through each day whatever comes. I hope that the Larsons did the same as they bore witness to the suffering that was surely all around them in 1938.

The Flood

As the Larsons were packing and preparing for their trip, which officially launched on March 1, 1938, it was raining in Southern California. The rain began on Sunday, February 27, and would not stop until Friday, March 4. It had been a pretty steady diet of rain for the previous 19 days, so the natural channels in and around the Los Angeles River were already saturated from the normal mountain runoffs that typically accompany the spring rains. Those five days of constant deluge and the resulting floods from the rivers and tributaries would completely overwhelm parts of Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside Counties. Almost a foot of rain fell during that five day period, six inches in one day alone. When it was over, more than 100 people were dead, thousands of homes destroyed, and tens of millions of dollars of damaged roads, washed-out bridges, and destroyed businesses and livelihoods lay in its wake.

Fred Larson’s sister Jane and her family lived in Bakersfield, which was the primary destination for the travelers. When Jane told Fred what was happening, he asked her to save for him all the newspapers reporting on the floods, which he then put into his scrapbook. Those articles and photos paint a devastating picture of death and destruction, but also heroism and courage as people helped each other escape the ravages of their destroyed lives. Once they arrived in California and the flood zone and actually saw the level of destruction, they couldn’t help being affected by it.

Their first hint of the devastation came when they drove through Banning on March 9, just a few short days after the record storms. Fred made the following note in his pad:

At Banning we hit first evidence of Cal flood. Water still on road and bridge out. Had to drive through water. Detour about 90 miles and came into Riverside where they were still digging out cars. 3 ft of sand and mud .

To day we passed thru the flood district and did we see sights! Auto mobiles buried in the sand, some they haven’t even dug out yet and they don’t even know whether there was any one in some of them or not. Bridges washed out, road slides and what not.

We have seen almost all kinds of weather. Two mornings it rained for awhile. One night just before we drove in to stay for the night we saw a blizzard on the mountain top and boy did it turn cold. Yesterday P.M. just before we put up for the nite we ran into a dust storm. It was 75 degrees down in Ala. and to day when we crossed the desert we needed our coats. We have taken a lot of pictures and I only hope they turn out good.

When I drove through Banning, Riverside, and around Los Angeles, there were no residual reminders of the devastation that had taken place. I did see evidence of the reengineering, however, when I took Sadie on a walk through the Arroyo Park that runs through Pasadena.

I have included a couple of video links about the 1938 flood on my Snippets and Tidbits page. Those video accounts, both fairly short, do a much better job of showing and telling what happened than I can do it justice here, and I encourage you to check them out. I found it pretty interesting and you may as well.

The Oil

The Larsons made a point of going to Long Beach, which is on the southern side of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, a fair distance from Bakersfield where they were staying. While there they took pictures of Rainbow Pier and there is some suggestion that they may have gone to Catalina Island (there is a brochure in the scrapbook). While their pictures of the ocean show a beautiful coastline and beach, mine show a busy and crowded marina, and the official docking station for the Queen Mary cruise ship. While their view of the shoreline and ocean was beautiful, so was mine even though vastly different.

They also went to Signal Hill, and I’m wondering if that was the real reason they went all the way to Long Beach.

To support my theory that the Larson men, Frank in particular, were interested in matters relating to California oil, Fred made a note that they drove by the home of Edward Doheny, of Teapot Dome Scandal fame, during their tour of Beverly Hills. Doheny was one of the richest, if not the richest, oil baron in the world at that time. He was the first to discover oil in the Los Angeles field, and soon after that exploited rich oil fields in Mexico as well. The wheeling and dealing and payoffs during the Warren G. Harding administration would permanently ruin his reputation, but he kept his wealth intact. Interesting side note: Doheny was tried twice but never convicted of paying the bribe that Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was convicted of accepting. Go figure. The scandal was less than ten years old in 1938 and I’m sure Fred and Frank would likely have been interested in seeing where all this oil and corruption originated.

Their pictures show a large field crammed full of oil derricks, and I was curious whether anything of the oil boom remained.

The Signal Hill field, which is part of the larger Los Angeles oil field, was enormously productive throughout the 1920’s and into the 30’s, when the Larsons visited. The end result of all that oil are the huge refineries that take up much of the land space in Long Beach. As I drove through it, the industrial panorama just went on and on and on.

Next Steps

Now that I’m in California, I will share a bit about the people who lived here, Fred’s sister Jane and his brother Alex. Once the gang got to Bakersfield, they stayed in the area for two weeks and had lots of fun adventures in San Francisco and Los Angeles, which I will tell you about and that I am trying to trace as best as I can in 2023. Some letters and postcards that went back and forth during those two weeks give voice to both the travelers and those left behind (my mother and uncle).

I also promised an article on van life, which I am thinking about and working on. Can’t tell you which will come next, so you’ll have to stay tuned!

Resources

Some of the information in this article came from the following sources:

• Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Great Okie Migration. https://americanexperience.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The-Great-Okie-Migration.pdf

• Yad Vashem. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/nazi-germany-1933-39/1938.html