Josh Kaplan

From 1960-1961, my aunt and my uncle, a freelance photographer who had mostly been published in LIFE magazine, embarked on a coast-to-coast tour.  That was from the coast of North Cape, Norway to Capetown, South Africa.   Ford Motor Company shipped over a brand new Falcon for them to use as they drove across Europe and Africa.  LIFE was looking for a good story!

I was in my first decade of life and hearing about their travel via the many postcards from my aunt, who was my mother’s twin sister.   Postcards from Oslo, Paris, Rome, Morocco and other, stranger sounding cities that I’d never even heard of.  Along the way, my uncle took photos.  So many photographs of the cities in Europe like I have never seen.  But the magical photographs came from Africa.  There is my uncle at 6’4” being stared at by a group of pygmies.  Another of my aunt, an RN in a previous life, helping bandage a patient in a local hospital.  A broken bridge with my aunt and uncle standing next to their trusty Falcon, staring into an abyss.  Clearly they needed to change their route that day!

Sadly, presumably during that trip, my uncle picked up some form of hepatitis while my aunt got malaria.  The malaria was uncomfortable, but survivable. The hepatitis was not.  My uncle died at the age of 38 in 1969, and my aunt was never the same, becoming a recluse and reveling in memories of the peripatetic life she and her husband led for a decade.  

For some reason, I was her favorite nephew and upon her death, I inherited so many souvenirs from their many travels.  Ashtrays from a private club in Nairobi, a carved giraffe from somewhere else in Africa, and much more.  The biggest gift she gave me, however, was the entire set of photographs and contact sheets that documented the Africa trip.  I have digitalized as many of them as I can, and I treasure them.

I also received a few more personal items.   Their Rolex watches; birth, marriage and death certificates; a diary that my aunt kept of her Euro-African trip.  

I think that my favorite piece of memorabilia I received was my uncle’s Meerschaum pipe.   Intricately carved, it is, perhaps, the head of some sort of tribal elder.  Honestly, I’m not sure.  But I love it and have it over the fireplace, along with that giraffe where I can see them daily.  

I love being reminded of my intrepid relatives who included me in their travels by postcards at the time and, in death, with a collection of photographs that show a couple in love having the trip of a lifetime!