My maternal grandfather, Lowell Townsend Copeland, loved trains.
In 1947, he and my grandmother took my mother and her younger sisters on a vacation via cross-country train from Pittsburgh.
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| Ann, Caroline, and Margot Copeland, July 1947 |
Several years ago, my mother told me what she remembered about the 21-day train trip to the West Coast: from Pittsburgh they went to Chicago, then to San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles, then back to Pittsburgh. Of the 21 days, she remembered that they spent 20 of them on the train.
However, I did find another train photo with handwriting that says they went to Seattle from San Francisco. In any case, they spent three weeks traveling across the country by train and loved it.
Either during the 1947 trip or during a later trip (in 1948, my grandparents went to Denver, Colorado), Grandfather brought his video camera and after taking a short segment of my grandmother, Helen (Hunter) Copeland,
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| Screen capture of my grandmother, enhanced by Restore by VividPix |
he must have had Grandmother take a short video clip of him.
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| Screen capture of my grandfather, enhanced by Restore by VividPix |
Also on that video (which I had digitized last fall), at least five minutes appear to be from a train show in Chicago where the Train of Tomorrow had been christened in a dedication ceremony in May 1947. His video includes short segments of many kinds of trains; there must have been a train show there which is why the family likely stopped there on their cross-country trip.
Grandfather subscribed to train magazines and owned several books about trains, some of which have been passed down to me.
I descend from Lowell Townsend Copeland:
This week's theme is Trains.
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