Media Coverage
TIMES-REPUBLICAN
(Marshalltown,IA)

Most people just talk about problems. Some try to do something about them.

A Marshalltown family, Florian and Helen Wilcox and their daughter and son-in-law, Dennis and Beverly Collins, have hosted some travelers this spring who fall in the second category.

Juanita Huson Sylvest and her mother, Malva Huson Brown, visited the Marshalltown area as part of an 18-month, 50 state tour. Iowa is the 33rd state they've visited since departing from Louisiana last June. They expect to be on the road through Thanksgiving. Why?

Aware of the growing number of children who are geographically illiterate about the United States, the mother-daughter journalist team is touring the country for the purpose of helping to improve children's knowledge of geography through bi-weekly letters they write while en route.

"The whole project is based on the idea that kids don't necessarily like to study and read text books, but all children enjoy getting personal mail," explained mother Brown.

"The desire to know more about the world in which we live is a natural instinct," added daughter Sylvest. "What we're trying to do is to use that innate curiosity to help kids get a feeling for the whole country--its cultural and physical geography, history and ecology."

This isn't the first time the pair has made such a trek. At the close of World War II the entire Huson family (including father and son) spent two years exploring the U.S.A., Canada,' Mexico and Central America. That's when they originated the Travel Letters" for children.

"It worked !" declared Brown, retired newspaper editor and librarian who co-created the original post-WWII series. "Some people who, as children, received the 1940s series still have their complete set of letters and told us that their children, and now their grandchildren, have also enjoyed using them to supplement their studies."

The modern trip reflects some of the changes during the four decades since the original 1946-47 trip.

During the first trip, the family traveled in a modified Ford complete with typewriter, Ditto machine and camping equipment. Today, the women travel in a motorhome, and use a word processor to produce the personalized letters.

"In those days, there were very few accommodations for travelers," recalled Brown, the 74-year-old grandmother of 14. "We often camped on open land, the beach, or in a city park. Now there is very little public access to land. Things are much more organized, commercialized and regulated. Of course, the roads are nicer but there are a lot more other people out there traveling, too."

"Another change is that we now have two additional states to cover -- Alaska and Hawaii," reminded Sylvest, who was only four years old first time around. "Then, too, back in the '40s no one thought about ecology, a subject we are emphasizing in our modern `Huson Travel Letters'."

Full-time travel is not a bed of roses. The women have had their share of mechanical problems with both the motorhome and the compact car in tow. The biggest was suffering a dual blowout at nighttime and having to sit by the roadside for seven hours while awaiting appropriate help.

Sylvest, a licensed boat captain and sailing instructor, said that her years of sailing helped to prepare her for handling the 29-foot, 8-ton motorhome. She observed, "It really is a `land yacht'. The operating systems are basically the same, but the medium through which we travel differs. We use the motorhome like the mother ship, getting us from major port to port. Then we unhitch the car (dinghy) for running here and there sightseeing."

"I do miss the water, though," sighed Sylvest who lived on the shores of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay prior to this venture. My first question at any campground is, `Do you have a site near water?'!" While in Central Iowa, she was delighted to call the Prairie Flower Campground on Saylorville Lake "home".

The women have dug for diamonds in Arkansas, visited a coal mine in West Virginia, boated through Michigan's Soo Locks, and tried hang gliding off Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga. "We both have enough child in us that we like to do things our readers would enjoy doing if they were actually traveling with us," claimed Sylvest, the mother of three. "We try to let the children feel that they are a part of our adventures and misadventures."

"Although much has changed with time," explained Brown, "the `Huson Travel Letters' are still friendly, chatty letters, addressed to the individual child, family, group, club or class who subscribes. We share our experiences, telling about what we have seen and done. It is an exciting and .fact filled armchair journey for the young and young-at-heart!"

The women are writing to subscribers from throughout the United States and in four foreign countries. "Although the series was created with children in mind, almost one third of our readers are adults who just want to travel with us vicariously. We also have some shut-ins and hospitalized readers," observed Sylvest.

Information about or subscriptions to the "Huson Travel Letters" are available from Color-Art, Inc., 10300 Watson Rd., St. Louis, MO 63127

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