Media Coverage
BATON ROUGE MAGAZINE

Juanita Huson Sylvest and Malva Huson Brown in motor home; and the Huson family in 1946: Malva, Roland III, Roland Jr. and Juanita

Husons to visit every state -- again

By SARAH SUE GOLDSMITH, Associate editor

High school seniors in Dallas didn't know that Mexico bordered southern Texas in a survey conducted by National Geographic Society. Juanita Huson Sylvest's honors-student daughter didn't know that the winter-sports states of Colorado and Vermont were not neighbors.

"Most people have some awareness of states adjacent to their own states," said Sylvest. "They know where Florida, Texas and California are. But other than that, they are culturally illiterate in geography."

Add to these facts the year-long trek made by the Roland Huson family in 1946 to visit all 48 states, Canada and Central America -- and the result is a burning desire of mother and daughter to revisit some of the interesting places and find some new ones.

Malva Huson Brown and Sylvest plan to set out on their odyssey on June 11. They anticipate taking 18 months to crisscross the United States, visit the two states that weren't part of the Union in 1946 and do their level best to contribute to the geographical savvy of young people across the country through travel letters.

In 1946, the Husons -- Roland, Malva, preschoolers Juanita ("Gadget") and Roland III ("Jigger"), now a Baton Rouge attorney -- discovered America in a Ford modified to serve as sleeping quarters when needed.

To help pay for the trip, the Husons sent personalized letters to school children across America, hand cranked on a portable ditto machine. The mother-daughter team plan to send their travel letters using more sophisticated equipment: they will have a computer center built into their 28-foot RV.

Sylvest admits that her memories of the long-ago trip are fleeting. "I'm not clear myself on what is true memory and what is reconstructed," she said. The family has talked about the journey all her life. She's certain of three memories, though, she said. One was of falling down a hill in Chicago, another was knocking over a bushel of apples in Washington state (which her mother had labored all day to pick), and the third memory was of getting into a bunch of ants in Guatemala. "That's when they confiscated our clothes and fumigated them," added her mother.

Brown's first husband, Roland Huson, who died in 1969, was publisher and she was editor of several weekly newspapers in Louisiana between 1948 and 1966: the Jonesville Booster, Catahoula News in Harrisonburg, The Plainsman in Zachary and The Watchman in Clinton.

Of that long-ago trip around America, one leg of it stands out in her memory. By the time the family reached Washington State, they had run out of money and the parents worked as migrants, picking apples, with the children playing at their sides.

Traveling with children ages 2 and 4 must have been a problem, many people might guess. "No, actually, they were very good; they didn't cry or complain. I think they enjoyed it," Brown said.

Promoting that first trip consisted primarily of Roland Huson speaking at clubs, using mailing lists and doing radio spots. "Orene Muse put us on her radio program," Brown said, and KMOX radio in St. Louis did a phone interview with them about the letters.

"It's been real interesting marketing the Huson Travel Letters," said Sylvest. "School systems won't talk about it. They are so tied up in bureaucratic red tape and reviews. We do have a few subscriptions from schools to go into the library, and a few to specific classes. The biggest response was from a market we didn't know existed. We queried magazines on doing articles on the trip and got a response from Home Education Magazine. I was amazed to learn that 250,000 to 500,000 families are educating children at home."

"Some people have said they thought it was a wonderful idea until they find out the subscription costs $75 instead of $3. That $75 covers 18 months and 40 letters, which breaks down to 94 cents a week. It's interesting to see who recognizes the value of the project." They have subscribers in Austria and Switzerland.

"We're hoping to get enough subscriptions to pay for the trip, but it would take 5,000. Mother and Daddy did it with 300 subscriptions, but that was more than 40 years ago."

More important than mere money is that they want to make the trip. "My parents didn't have any guarantees in the '40s, and we don't have any guarantees in the '80s. That's part of the adventure."

History, culture and ecology will be included in the letters. "Kids are more tuned in to ecology than we are."

There won't be any whitewashing of the places they visit. "We'll tell it like it is -- not just the positive aspects 

Do they view this as a grand vacation?

"If you're really trying to visit the things that are important at the depth level it takes to write about it, it's work -- not vacation. Mother is good at doing the research, and my 12 years in the travel industry has trained me to be able to go into an area, not waste time and get a real feel for it in a short period of time." Mother and daughter are the perfect team, Sylvest said. "I enjoy driving and Mother is a wonderful navigator. I'll write. She'll edit." Sylvest is in charge of maps and drawings, even took a drawing course last summer to prepare for the task.

Time has been carefully budgeted, although they want to keep it flexible. "We planned 10 days per state, but we know we won't need 10 days for some of the Eastern states. We'll save some of those days for the larger Western states." Sylvest is eager to visit the Pacific Northwest. "It's an absolutely gorgeous area. My appetite was whetted by a brief trip to the area."

She wrote to tourism and education departments in all 50 states, asking for material on places to visit. The responses have inundated her. "Some of them put our project in their newsletters. Some really took some time and effort to research the places they want children in other states to know about their state."

"For example," she said, "the state of Maryland owns an 18th-century refurbished clipper ship, and school children in Maryland get a chance to sail aboard that ship for one day and learn about environmental issues and maritime activities."

The May issue of Child magazine is scheduled to run an item about the trip. Sylvest will write features for Camping Today, Home Education Magazine and L.A. Parents Magazine. "NPR Weekend Edition is interested," she said, "in an interview about the basic project. I'd like to do a traveling vignette."

Sylvest, whose home is in Maryland, is a U.S. Coast Guard-licensed captain and teaches sailing through Womanship. "I burned out on writing and went into the travel industry," she said. "I spent 12 years in marketing, specializing in group travel and incentive travel. After the TWA bombing and hijacking. I decided 'I'm ready to get out of this'."

She owns Leisure and Travel Marketing, writing brochures and marketing campaigns for clients -- everything from hotels to boat charters. Her travel expertise will be invaluable in creating those letters every two weeks, three or four pages each, accompanied by maps.

Not every family can afford the time or expense of taking their children on such an extensive field trip as seeing America in one sweep. Sylvest believes the travel letters will bring America closer to young readers and provide a needed segment of their cultural education.

Anyone interested in more information about the Huson Travel Letters may contact Malva Huson Brown and Juanita Huson Sylvest at 304-925-2454.