Stealth Journeys with the Steam Mapper

Chapter 60: Mom's Stories, Read & Remembered

Mom has always been an avid reader.  On Stef's last visit home, Mom was finishing up her copy of Remarkable Creatures, a novel by Tracy Chevalier, who wrote great historical fiction.   Mom especially enjoyed this one, because it told much of Mary Anning's story of finding fossils along the bluffs of the Dorset coast, near Lyme Regis, England.  This woman's fossil finds were the ones in the museum visited by Eliza Land, her "great" step-grandmother married to Ned Land.  Mom remembered Mary Anning's contribution by the little rhyme taught: "She sells sea shells down by the seashore".

Ned Land's first wife and a real great, great-grandmother to Mom and Stef, raised five children alone, while Ned was earning a livelihood as a whaler.  When he was declared lost at sea, his wife joined his brother's family but never remarried.  Ned learned that she died from a lengthy illness just two years later and their children were adopted by their aunt and uncle.   Although Ned did not return to North America after his rescue from the Nautilus, he did send some money to his children and expressed his gratitude to his younger brother and sister-in-law who raised up his children.   The children enjoyed the letters sent telling about Ned's travels and discoveries, and they became family heirlooms passed down from generation to generation.

Ned and Eliza Land did come to the United States in 1924, after the Great War, and when all hope for Sir Steven's return had been exhausted.  They traveled aboard the world's largest liner, the White Star Line Majestic on a trip from Southampton, England to New York City via Cherbourg, France.  Their voyage began May 7th, 1924, and in less than a week of elegant dining, dancing, and discussing with new found friends, they were checking in to accommodations at the lovely mid-town Manhattan Wellington Hotel.  The plan was to spend some time in New York, before using an agent to arrange a cross country tour of the United States.   Eliza had read of successful orators giving lectures within a Chautauqua circuit or Lyceum series.  She knew Will Rogers was planning to tour in the following year.  She knew Mark Twain had devoted many years to traveling about the country and other nations, too, sharing stories of his experiences.

Eliza was also familiar with the success of Fanny Osbourne Stevenson's writings of the travels she made with her husband, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Well, she could do the same!  She wrote of the voyages and explorations she and Ned made along with Sir Steven Payne, and also described the adventures Ned Land had shared with her, about his time aboard the Nautilus.  And, she was prepared to augment her program with readings from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.   Ned Land was now in his late eighties, but he would join her to shake hands and attempt to answer a few questions.  They met with Ned's youngest daughter, Stef's mother's great grandmother, and encouraged her to join them and make a permanent move from Canada to become a United States citizen.

She came to visit, bringing her youngest child, a brawny young man of 24 years, who was the one who chose to travel with them, across the country.  He, Ted, remained single for 25 years and then married Nancy, 25 years younger than he.   When Nancy first joined the circus, she wanted a more exotic name and chose to call herself "Candice"- "Candy" for short, after Edgar Bergen's brand- new baby daughter, (Charlie McCarthy's little sister).

"Candy" was an animal lover, and, interestingly, a circus performer who also sold cotton candy between bareback riding performances.  Ted Land was the circus veterinarian for the large mammals, and he was very smitten with the beautiful Candy, who visited with him as he cared for the many horses and ponies in the circus.   While still performing, Candy became Candy Land.  An interesting fact about which her family never stopped kidding her.   But soon, she was once again Nancy due to the fact that she "retired" soon after they were married to raise their children and keep the home fires burning.  Doing dangerous stunts while being a mother of young children was asking a bit much.

Stef's own Grandpa Land, Mom's dad, also became a veterinarian, but one who traveled from ranch to ranch to take care of cattle and other livestock in southwest Florida.  Florida ranches competed with Texan ones in size and output, agriculture being Florida's number one industry for many decades, until Mr. M. T. Lott began buying up land in central Florida in the 1960s.   Many Floridians rued the day he came to town.  Orlando and Kissimmee would never again be the beautiful, sleepy little cow towns, after M.T. Lott changed the landscape.

The Grandfather Land Stef's mother remembered so lovingly, had settled in Florida in the 1950's after he retired from the Ringling Brothers Circus, ending his job as their head large mammal veterinarian.   It was the trips to her grandparents' Anna Maria home on a barrier island off of Manatee County, that Stef's mother remembered as the most fun way to spend a summer.   This grandmother, Nancy Land, had a son who became Stef's mom's father, and Stef's mom, Tammy grew up as Tammy Land until she married Ed and became Mrs. Ed Fulton, and with her doctorate completed, became another Dr. Fulton in their marriage.  That was a lot of "Land" remembered for Stef, who enjoyed the family connections to southwest Florida's beautiful beaches and riverside state parks and rookeries, and scenic swamps and jungles, and prairie lands.