Monday August 18, 1930

After breakfast the pilgrims had the opportunity to take a morning sight-seeing tour of New York City. Several busses were used to transport them on this tour. The tour lasted from 9 am until 12:30 pm.

The Army escorts on the busses pointed out sights of interest such as the Riverside Baptist Church, Riverside Drive, Park Avenue, Broadway (14 miles long, the longest street in New York), the public library, the Empire State Building (102 stories high) (1), the 22 story high Flat Iron Building (2), Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Post Office (which at the time handled 15 million pounds of mail a day), Trinity Christian Church, the Aquarium, the Manhattan Bridge, the Push Cart town where they sold everything out of carts – everything you wanted from a shirt to a potato. They rode through the slums of New York where poor people lived in two and three little rooms. They saw China Town and the Woolworth Building.

The pilgrims were allowed off the bus at a few stops – Mrs. Fannie Fine of Missouri, a widow who was a pilgrim on Josephine’s tour, told of leaving the bus for a peep into the Aquarium. At that point she noticed cameramen coming. Mrs. Fine asked, “Why in the world do you want my picture? I’ll break your camera.” To which the cameramen replied, “This pilgrimage is unique in itself and we would like to get pictures of all the ladies.” Mrs. Fine reported that she was soon to get tired of being followed, stared at, and snapped.

How Josephine's Journey wishes it knew where to find some of the pictures taken that day!

What did Josephine think about the big city? She was familiar with New Orleans, having been married there and lived there for a short while. But New York was something else! Was she overwhelmed by the many people she encountered, the skyscrapers, the busy climate?

After the sightseeing tour, the group returned to the hotel for lunch. There were no scheduled events for the afternoon.

Did Josephine stay at the hotel or did she perhaps venture out with some other mothers/widows, to the Empire State Building, only a block away? On a 1932 pilgrimage, one daughter who had accompanied her mother on the pilgrimage told of how she took her mother and some other ladies to a show on Broadway. She cleared the outing with an escort officer, who told them to “stay out of jail.”

Note: Family members were allowed to accompany their relatives on the trip but had to pay all their own trip expenses, at a considerably higher cost than the $850 cost per pilgrim. I don’t know if there were any family members on Josephine’s pilgrimage.

Mrs. Fannie Fine reported that some of the pilgrims did go to shows. I am thinking that Josephine probably did not have much excess money to spend on something like a show, but maybe she did venture out to see some of the free sights within walking distance of the hotel. We hope she did!

At some point in time before sailing, a reception for the Gold Star Mothers and Widows was held at City Hall. At that time, the mothers and widows were presented with a silk flag (3), a gift from New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker, along with his best wishes (on some pilgrimages the acting mayor presented the flags to the mothers in place of Mayor Walker and on some pilgrimages the mayor’s representative came to the hotel to deliver the flags).

The Mayor or his representative may have said something to this effect:

If America was great in the World War, it was great because of your boys. They fought and died heroic deaths, and in dying gave tangible manifestation of the idealism of a great nation . . . as long as a cross guards an American soldier’s grave in Flanders or in France, there shall be a reminder of the heroism, unselfishness, and high idealism of the American people. You go now to take your sad station beside one of those white crosses . . . with the prayers of a grateful nation.

Then, as one pilgrim described the scene, “the city gave each one of us – one at a time – a small silk American flag.”

This American flag could be rolled and stored in a tube; the tube became a handle for the flag when in use. Many of the mothers waved these small American flags as they boarded the ship.

Note: Josephine’s silk flag was given to her daughter, Norma. At Norma’s death, the flag was given to Josephine’s great granddaughter, Norma. Norma has kindly consented to let Josephine's Journey have custody of the flag at this time – a priceless treasure from Josephine’s Journey! Thank you, Norma!

One more day until sailing! Josephine received a notice, reminding her of this:


Excitement was surely building as Josephine spent her final night at the Hotel McAlpin!




Source: written by Carolyn Ourso