Another trip around the world

 

St. Joseph News-Press, 19 Mar 1939

Globetrotting photographers Mary Cox Irvine and William G. Irvine took another trip around the world in 1939, starting with the Golden Gate Exhibition in San Francisco in March of that year. The news article above captures their itinerary. They ended their trip with a stop at the World's Fair in New York, which was also visited by my Gumpy around the same time.

On this voyage, William brought along a camera with color film to record movies, which he later showed during talks back in Missouri.

I haven't been able to find them in the passenger records for the start of their trip, but I did find them in the arrival record at the Port of New York on 15 July 1939, on the ship SS President Roosevelt from Cobh, Ireland. Perhaps they visited some of William's ancestral lands near Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interestingly, William listed his birth place as Oelwein, Iowa, which is where his parents settled after arriving in America. Mary's birth place is listed as White Plain, Tennessee, a misspelling of White Pine, a town in Jefferson & Hamblen Counties where her family was from.

Ancestry. New York Passenger Lists, Jul 1939.

While I haven't found their departure records from March/April 1939, their published path matches an offering on the Matson Lines from Hawaii to Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.

Huntington Library. Matson Lines Winter Offerings, 1936.