Welcome !
Olave was born in 1889, Carl the following year; they first met in 1919, when Olave and her husband had visited North America. Olave had been married for seven years and had three small children, while Carl had been married only two years, & haad just one small baby. Their friendship had continued over the years, as Olave explains >here<.
From 1943 Olave was living in England; she had been living in Kenya with her husband when he had died in 1941. In the winter, her apartment (which she always referred to as "Hampers") was cold and difficult (and expensive) to heat, so Olave liked to spend the English winter in a warmer climate - or at least in warmer buildings !
Carl lived in Toronto, Canada, and by the 1950s she had been a widow for nearly 30 years. Both now had grandchildren.
In 1953, Olave crossed the Atlantic (as she had done often before), and Carl drove them in her car round North America. They stayed with friends, and sometimes in motels. They attended a great many functions, and met lots of people. In order to keep track, Olave had an address book, in which she also wrote notes about the people she met. She had one for Canada, with about 300 addresses, and one for the USA, with about 900 addresses. Every Christmas, Olave would send out Chritstmas cards to her friends - she had 2000 printed - and she had a "Perm[anent]" List, and an annual "Supple[ment]" of those people whom she had met during the year. Most of those mentioned will now be "on the other side", so I have no qualms about posting these names, descriptions and addresses. If you are from North America, it is possible that you may find mention of a relation ! Either in an Address Book, or in the Journal entries. Olave's address books can be found here. I hope to index the names and places at some stage. Or if you would like to do some indexing, do feel free, & send me a copy to post here !
In 1955 Olave and Carl repeated the trip, and in the summer of 1957, Carl brought her car over to England, and chauffered Olave around the country. In 1959 Olave crossed the Atlantic again for another tour, with a different itinerary, and for this tour, Olave kept a diary, that she presented to Carl at the end of the tour. They repeated this tour four times more, in 1961, '63, '65 and 1967, and for these tours, Olave wrote a more voluble Journal, that she presented to Carl at the end of each tour.
Olave hated writing; she far preferred to throw a sheet of paper into her typewriter, She was a very fast typer, but used the "hunt and peck" method, though she did often use all her fingers. She described it once as "I just paddle around on my typewriter". So these Journals are loose-leaf, and mostly typed. Her typing is full of "mistakes", some of which are "corrected" - this was before the days of Tippex; corrections are by vehement over-typing. The result is as unique as any handwriting.
Olave's Cardinal Rule with respect to "bed-&-butter" letters - letters of thanks after an event - was that they all HAD to be written and posted from that town, before she departed for another town; that was the only way to avoid a backlog. So it was quite usual for her, after a busy day, to stay up into the small hours, pounding away on her typewriter. The Journals hold many names and addresses acquired during each day; each got a letter of thanks.
Olave died in 1977, and Carl a few years later (I think).
Nearly twenty years later, Olave's daughter Betty visited Canada. From her Journal of her 1985 tour of Canada, pages 44 to 46. This was a duplicate book, and every few days she tore out the top copy and sent it home as a "letter" - and as "insurance" lest the original be lost !.
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22nd May 1985
That evening we went out to dinner with Ian & Sal Jennings and John & Lyn Hughes.
Sal & Lyn are daughters of Carl Pepler.
It was all great fun and the chat was fun, with lots of reminiscences of our two mothers – nothing very monumental, in fact afterwards I tried to remember & there wasn't even any incident worth writing down!
But I have here the Journals that Sal gave me in 1983, the little Journals that Mum wrote, in her handwriting, for Carl, during their long journeys.
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Those Journals, having been scanned, are now in the care of the Worshipfiul Company of Mercers, in London, who also hold Olave's 71 photograph albums.
This WebSite will hold the transcriptions of those five journals as they are transcribed. Don't hold your breath !
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