Scope and Contents

Diary, 1935-1936, of an unknown woman on a trip to Panama. Entries include descriptions of the country, the people she meets, and an illness that she contracts while there. She also describes her voyage back to the United States, her treatment, and her travels through Los Angeles, California.

Scope and Contents The collection consists mostly of love letters between Ella-May Abbott of New Orleans, Louisiana and Walter James Rathbun who is based in ship ports in the United States, Europe, Nicaragua and the Panama Canal Zone.  Letters from Walter Rathbun’s Mother, Mrs. J. Baird of Floral Park, New Jersey and other family members are included. Ella-May and Walter begin a correspondence courtship in 1916, then breakup in 1919. They begin writing to each other again in 1926 and finally marry...

Scope and Contents The papers of Marie Katherine and Oliver Seegelken consist of a 1934 diary of the couple's South American sea voyage kept by Marie Seegelken, and of love letters between husband and wife, 1918, 1943, and undated. During WWI, Oliver Seegelken served in the USNRF (United States Naval Reserve Force) in San Pedro, California.The diary is filled not only with an account of each day, but with hand-drawn illustrations of passengers, crew, and ports.  Marie Seegelken also wrote vignettes...