Those Places Thursday–Webster Family Road Trip: California or Bust!

This is part of a series of posts dedicated to the immigration story of Debs Webster and his family.

On July 7, 1952, my Grandpa Debs Webster and his family boarded the S. S. Brazil in Santos, Brazil on their way to a new life in the United States.  When they arrived in New York, they bought a car and traveled across the United States to their final destination in Southern California.

Here is the car Grandpa Debs purchased in New York.  It’s a 1951 Chevrolet Sedan.  My mom just recently showed me this awesome photo of the car with my uncles standing in front of it.  The car is parked in front of their new house in Pomona, California.  The lumber on top of the Chevy indicates to me that my Grandpa was working on some kind of project.  He was a very handy guy and always liked to have projects to work on.

1951 Chevrolet Sedan
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My uncle (the boy on the left in the photo above) wrote an email to me about his memories of their immigration to the United States and subsequent road trip from New York to California. As you read what he said, please keep in mind that they were traveling during the summer.  Here's a little snippet from his email:

"The trip was long—made longer by the heat!  We rolled down the windows and tried to be cooled by the wind as it passed through the car.  Unfortunately, the air was usually hot and we got little relief from it.  At the time, some people had a device that hooked on to the top of a window on their cars which they filled with a quantity of ice or dry ice (I really don’t know which).  This served as a scooping device that would chill the hot air from outside and circulate it inside.  This served as air conditioning in those days.  We had no such device!  Evenings were more comfortable, except that I found the concept of sleeping outdoors to be uncivilized.  After all, people were meant to sleep inside, or so I thought!  As I grew up I learned to enjoy camping out until being in Korea in the Infantry cured me of it forever!  Typically Pop would find a wide shoulder on the side of the highway where we could pull over and set up for the night."

I was intrigued by my uncle’s description of the cooling devices attached to car windows.  I had never heard of such a thing.  I did a little research on the internet to see if I could find anything about these cooling devices.  And, to my surprise, I found not only information about them, but photos too.

Wikipedia referred to this device as a car cooler.  The website stated , “A car cooler is an automobile window-mounted evaporative air cooler, sometimes referred to as a swamp cooler.  It is an early type of automobile "air conditioner."

If you’d like to read more about this fascinating early air conditioner for cars, just click HERE.

Below are photos of these car coolers from Wikimedia Commons.

Car Cooler on 1950 Chevy
Wikimedia Commons - Photo by Doug Coldwell
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Thermador Car Cooler
Wikimedia Commons - Photo by Doug Coldwell
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Car Cooler Front View
Wikimedia Commons - Photo by Doug Coldwell
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As “cool” as these early air conditioners look, I’m so happy for the modern air conditioning systems we enjoy today!

The next installment of my Grandpa Debs and his family’s immigration story will find them arriving at their sponsor’s home in Glendora, California.

Thanks for reading!

Jana


Copyright © Jana Last 2012