Sunday, September 9, 2012

From 1937: Snow Family Back After Trailer Tour All Around Country

The following article was published 75 years ago today, appearing in the Hartford Courant on September 9, 1937.

Wilbert Snow was a poet, and an influential teacher at Wesleyan. He was friends with notable poets like Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost, and a supporter of controversial left-wing causes. Snow was lieutenant governor when he ran for governor on the Democratic ticket, and lost to Wesleyan President James L. McConaughy. Two weeks before McConaughy was inaugurated, the previous governor, Raymond Baldwin, resigned to take his newly elected seat as a U.S. Senator. Snow served as governor for those 13 days.

Snow School was named in his honor.

The oldest boy in the Snow family, Charles Wilbert Snow Jr., was 14 years old at the time of the family trip. He passed away last week at the age of 89.

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Middletown Group Covered 16,000 Miles Since Last February.

Middletown's trailer tourists, the Snow family, were settling down to the humdrum life in a city home Wednesday. Behind them lay 16,000 miles of highway and seven months of traveling to the four corners of the nation.



Last February, Wilbert L. Snow, Professor of English at Wesleyan University and well known for his poetry, left here with Mrs. Snow, their five sons and their dog. Their car and trailer took them south through Washington and on to Florida where they spent more than two weeks.

Traveling up the west coast of Florida, they went inland through the cotton country of Alabama, crossed to the Mississippi and followed the river down to New Orleans.

At Atlanta Professor Snow spoke at Laura Spellman College.

Leaving New Orleans and moving north through Louisiana, the trailer crossed Texas and went on through the Southwest. For nine days the party stayed at the Grand Canyon.

In Hollywood members of the family were guests of Barton MacLane, actor and former pupil of Professor Snow at Wesleyan. The trip went on up the Pacific Coast states to Seattle, then across country to Spruce Head, Me., to the Snow summer home.

It was allover last Tuesday night when the trailer was parked in the backyard of the home here. All went well but for the loss of the dog, killed under a wheel of the trailer.

In the part were the Snow's five sons, Wilbert Jr., John, Nicholas, Stephen and Gregory. Gregory last week celebrated his second birthday.

1 comment:

  1. I took a trip to foxwoods to see what the fuss was about.Met many nice people and a painted man doing a video.
    Come to find out he will be at the shadow room on Sept 15 at 8 pm and looking forward to seeing a new friend.Can't get any better then that!

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