"MRS. ORLOPP'S TRAVEL NOTES," written for the Atchison [Kansas] Daily Globe in 1937, and collected in a notebook with photographs, postcards, and clippings of her six week tour of Europe just prior to World War II.
[1937]. Grey cloth bound scrapbook, with printed lettering laid down on the front cover: "My Book / Estel[la] Orlopp / 1 / Six Weeks in Europe / 1937." The scrapbook measures 12 x 10 inches, with 173 pp., all but a handful of which are covered with copies of Mrs. Orlopp's newspaper articles, photos, postcards, and clipped illustrations from her trip. Her news articles (approx. 33 of them) were published in a column in her local newspaper between July 7, 1937 - April 9, 1938. Mrs. Orlopp's 59 photos (including one photo postcard of her tour group, mostly women and a few men) have typed captions attached along the bottom of the images. They include views on board the ship, SS Laconia; street scenes at Oxford, Marlborough Castle, and Windsor Castle in England, views of people wearing traditional costumes in Holland, a tour on the Rhine River, the Berlin Zoo, San Souci Palace (home of Frederick the Great), Dresden (a distant view), Prague (the clock tower), Budapest (a photo of inhabitants, blurry), Trieste, the Adriatic, Venice (St. Marks, Santa Maria della Salute, Campanile, Bridge of Sighs), Florence (view from the hills), Amalfi (view from the hills), Sorrento (view from the hills), the ruins at Pompeii (6 views), and the Roman Forum (3 views). They vary in size, most being either 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 in., 3 x 4 in.. or 3 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. They are an amateur photographer's snapshots from a steady hand, save for one blurred image. She has further annotated her scrapbook with 85 color and 101 black & white postcards, plus clippings from travel brochures and maps (approx. 150 items). A few items have become detached from the pages, but most are still where she placed them. Item #58072
Estella Orlopp (1878-1965) lived in Atchison, Kansas and was the wife of a well known lawyer and member of the Atchison Bar, Hugo Orlopp (1870-1954). Her summer tour was to take her through eleven countries, from which she engaged to send back regular notes on her adventures. Mrs. Orlopp's column entitled "Mrs. Orlopp's Travel Notes," began publication in July with the following editor's note: "Mrs. Hugo Orlopp of Atchison has begun her trip to Europe, and will write travel notes for The Globe. Herewith are her first notes, and they are very breezy. Mrs. Orlopp has originality, and writes well, and we believe Globe readers will enjoy the series of observations she will indite." Her articles are rich in detail. In Holland, she gives a brief report on the engineering feat accomplished five or six years before, of the erection of a sea wall 20 miles long, with an electrical pump and draining system that protects a large section of land for agricultural use. In Mainz, she visits the home of Johannes Gutenberg, and St. Martin's cathedral which had been restored by Napoleon. She remarks on the numerous types of German wines. At the German border and in Berlin, mention is made of the Nazi presence. In each city the tour group visited, they were accompanied by a local guide. According to her article, Mrs. Orlopp says, "I was told that there are 225,000 Jews and 32 synagogues in Berlin. We were all desirous of learning something of the situation but the subject was glossed over and quickly sidetracked by the guide who stated that the Jews were all continuing on in business as before and that a lot of undue pubicity and propaganda had been printed about the matter. We made no comments but remembered that 3 young Jewish people in our tour had left us before we entered Germany and were to rejoin us in Hungary, conclusive evidence that they feared the Nazis. The German people whom we met evinced no willingness to discuss Reich affairs." She mentions visiting the Reich Sports Grounds where the Olympics were held the previous year.
In Potsdam, during her visit to "San Souci," she "silently chuckled over Teutonic shrewdness in having tourists daily polish the floors." She declares Dresden to be one of the loveliest cities in Germany, and says it is "to Zeiss cameras and Ikon films as Rochester is to Eastman's..." In Budapest, she describes Hungarian anger at the Treaty of Trianon (of 1920) , which split parts of Hungary amongst its neighbors. She mentions a postcard, created by the Hungarian Women's National association, which shows a raised map with a lever "which causes to move away parts of the country in each direction, showing exactly what percentage of Hungary was given to Rumania, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia." [A copy of the postcard is laid down on a facing page of the scrapbook]. In Vienna one evening, after a concert in the park, Mrs. Orlopp and some of her tour companions sampled a "peach bowl" at Huebner's, "a marvelous concoction that...made me dizzy mentally and physically...It was what Ben Johnson would refer to as 'Jove's Nectar,' but O.O. Mcintyre would aptly describe as a 'Giddyap.' " Mrs. Orlopp's articles are informative, amusing, urbane, and full of historical and architectural detail. She includes commentary on current events and the mood of the people she meets in a Europe about to undergo major upheaval. Upon her return to the United States, she gave a speech before the local Atchison Kiwanis club in February 1938, a news clipping pasted in the scrapbook reports She stated that she believed that Europe would start a general war that year, and that Hitler's popularity was subsiding in Germany.
Price: $250.00