In the middle of the impenetrable jungle of Botswana. A very tall, blonde woman dressed in a shirt and breeches stares into the thicket, a rifle over her shoulder. Behind a rock, two golden yellow cat eyes stare back. A leopard! She picks up the rifle, cocks it and pulls the trigger. A shot, followed by the rustling sound of rapidly moving paws in the undergrowth. The name of this young, intrepid adventurer is Aloha Wanderwell, her mission: to be the first woman to circumnavigate the world by automobile.
A few years earlier, in the late fall of 1922, 16-year-old Aloha Wanderwell attends a strict convent school in Nice on the southern French Riviera. Her real name is Idris Hall and she comes from Canada. The early death of her father in the First World War forces the family to leave their Canadian homeland and move to Europe. While her mother tries to make ends meet for Idris and her sister Miki with her meagre widow's pension, the 16-year-old dreams of traveling to faraway countries and going on adventures. At night, she secretly reads dime novels that are about nothing else. As chance (or fate) would have it, she stumbles across a newspaper advertisement one day that will change her life at a stroke:
BRAINS, BEAUTY – AND BREECHES
World Tour Offer For a Lucky Young Woman
Captain Walter Wanderwell is seeking a lady secretary to join his world tour by auto...
A good-looking, brainy young person, who is as clever as a journalist as her appearance is attractive. She must forswear skirts, and incidentally marriage, for at least two years. Be prepared to rough it in Asia and Africa, to record the adventures of the party, to learn to work before and behind a movie camera.
The young woman is immediately hooked. She has long felt like an outsider at the convent school, which is not only due to her unusual height of 6 feet (1.80 meters). She finds it difficult to subordinate herself to a rigid system that does not allow any right to self-determination, and so arguments with classmates and nuns are a daily occurrence for hert. After reading the newspaper advertisement, she finally sees her chance to fulfill her desire for adventure and freedom. When she further reads that Captain Wanderwell will be stopping off in Nice on his promotional tour for his planned trip around the world, her mind is made up.
Like one of the heroines from her adventure novels, she steals out of the convent after curfew, takes the streetcar across the city and even manages to cheat her way past the admission control at the theater where Wanderwell is performing, as she doesn't have the money for the entrance fee. After the performance, which includes film footage of past trips, Idris' wanderlust is even stronger. Her attempt to get backstage to intercept Wanderwell is hampered by a horde of young women who have had the same idea. But with her height and bilingualism, she manages to beat off all the other applicants. The adventure can begin - if only there wasn't the problem that Idris is still a minor...
During a visit a few days later, Captain Wanderwell tries to convince Idris' mother that her daughter is the right person to accompany him on his trip around the world. Walter Wanderwell, whose real name is Valerian Pieczynski and who originates from Poland, has been on the road since the age of 14. As a mariner, he has already sailed around many parts of the world, but now he is tempted by the challenge of discovering the world with the modern means of transportation of the moment, the automobile. The origin of this idea was a bet between him and his then wife as to who could cover the most kilometers in a car within a year. The bet ultimately came to nothing, but Wanderwell could not let go of the idea of traveling the world by car. With the end of the world war, the adventurer was convinced that such an undertaking could also be used for diplomatic purposes with media impact. His dream of creating an international peace police force made up of many world travelers like him, which would prevent further wars in the future through cultural exchange, became the goal of this mission. The trip was to be financed by sponsors, the sale of brochures and postcards and the screening of films in major cities.
Whether it was Walter's convincing arguments, Idris' persistent pleading or the promise that he would take over the guardianship of her daughter, Mrs. Hall finally gives her consent. The only thing missing now is a suitable stage name for the young woman. The choice falls on Aloha, in reference to Idris' favorite record from childhood, which contained Hawaiian dances. So Idris Hall becomes Aloha Wanderwell - a name that promises exoticism and adventure.
However, things don't really get off the ground for a while, as the first task is to complete the promotional tour through Europe in order to attract further media attention and financial resources. At the beginning, Aloha is still struggling with speaking freely in front of an audience and selling brochures profitably. She also has to learn how to drive a car. Wanderwell owned several Ford T models, which he had modified to meet the needs of different road and weather conditions:
There were no doors, but it had removable floorboards […], pressed steel wheels (wooden spoke tires were still the norm), and telescoping axles that allowed the car to travel on railway lines.*
Driving these vehicles is a challenge in its own right, as there is a lot to consider at the same time:
The intricate ballet of gas, clutch, throttle, choke, steering wheel, and brake was ardous, and just getting the vehicle to start was a task bordering on witchcraft. […] it was vital to ensure the spark was 'retarded' so the engine wouldn't kick back. Also the crank handle had to be held loosely in case the enginge did revolt and send the crank flying in reverse, possibly breaking a thumb or wrist. While cranking with one hand, the other had to simultaneously operate the choke via a wire poking out from beneath the radiator.**
As Aloha begins to grow into her new role, the promotional tour continues through France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany and Poland. From Poland, they want to start the world tour in an easterly direction, through Romania, the Carpathians, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine to Egypt. Along the way, adventure seeking people regularly join the mission and become part of the Wanderwell crew for one or more stages. Translators are always in particular demand, and Walter likes them to be pretty and female, a fact that often leads to jealousy and discord, as Aloha has now developed feelings for her “adoptive father” and does not tolerate direct competition. A fierce argument ensues in Poland, which leads to Aloha leaving the expedition without further ado and traveling back to France.
However, the situation calms down a few weeks later and the young woman is ready to return to Wanderwell. They meet again in Egypt, where film footage of the Sphinx and the pyramids is being shot.
They continue their journey by ship along the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aden, across the Arabian Sea to Bombay***. There, the crew first have to take a forced break as there are problems with the entry permit, an obstacle they will stumble over again and again on their further journey. When they are finally free to go on, Aloha wants to dive straight into the adventure. The prospect of being the first woman to cross India by car puts her in high spirits. But the journey from Bombay to Calcutta is no walk in the park. Through scorching heat, unpaved roads and monsoon rainstorms, they fight their way 1,200 miles across the country and reach Calcutta after three weeks, completely exhausted.
The crew can recover in Singapore, from where they continue on to China. There, further bureaucratic hurdles and suspicious military officers await them, and they also experience first-hand how badly the population in some areas is shaken by poverty, epidemics and war.
They continue east into Soviet Russia, where they are greeted by freezing temperatures. Despite language barriers (they don't have an interpreter there), they manage to make friendly contact with the local population. They are so impressed by Aloha's appearance and achievements that she is even made an “honorary colonel” in a large public ceremony.
The next stop for the Wanderwell expedition is Japan. There, too, people are initially suspicious at the border and the group has to endure several hours of questioning before entry is finally granted after a three-day wait. However, the rest of their stay in Japan makes up for the difficult start. The pleasant weather, the impressive landscape and the hospitality of the locals, who let them take part in tea ceremonies and show enormous enthusiasm for their trip around the world, leave a lasting impression. The public interest is so great that even Crown Prince Hirohito drops by to say hello at an official Wanderwell event, a great honor that is certainly not bestowed on everyone. In Tokyo, they receive the news that Henry Ford himself wants to exhibit one of their Model T vehicles, as the first Ford to circumnavigate the globe. A gesture that seems to have finally secured their place in the history books.
After a brief stopover in Hawaii, Aloha and Walter Wanderwell set foot on American soil on January 25, 1925, two years after setting off from France. Their reception there is much more sober than they are used to. The press is only superficially interested, some newspapers mention their world tour in just two lines alongside reports of arriving cargo ships. The American justice system is not on the Wanderwells' side either. Walter is arrested a short time later on suspicion of white slaverynand alleged espionage activities during the war. The espionage charges are dropped, but both have to stand trial because of Aloha's age. To make matters worse, the young woman is now pregnant by Walter. Despite these adversities, Walter finally manages to officially divorce his still-wife and marry Aloha. The legal problems are now a thing of the past.
Aloha can now concentrate on editing the footage from her travels into a feature-length film, while Walter is already making plans for the future. The former “Wanderwell Around the World Endurance Contest”, WAWEC for short, which arose from the bet with his wife at the time, is now to become the “Work Around the World Educational Club”, a club that anyone can join who, like the Wanderwells, wants to lead a self-sufficient life on the road. Given the many travel records that were set around the globe in the 1920s, this was certainly not a bad idea.
On December 20, 1925, Aloha gives birth to her child, but this only puts a brief damper on her travel fever. The call for adventure was soon too great to resist. Until the 1930s, she and Walter would travel through several more countries by car, including Cuba, South Africa, Sudan, Kenya, Botswana, Brazil and Australia, breaking more records and collecting amazing film footage in the process.
If you enjoyed the article and would now like to read more about the intrepid Aloha Wanderwell and her many travel adventures, I recommend reading Aloha's autobiography: A Call to Adventure and Aloha Wanderwell - The border-smashing, record-setting life of the world's youngest explorer by Christian Fink-Jensen & Randolph Eustace-Walden.
Yours,
Marleen Tigersee
* Christian Fink-Jensen & Randolph Eustace-Walden, Aloha Wanderwell - The boder-smashing, record-setting life of the world's youngest explorer, New Brunswick 2016, p. 63.
** ibd., p. 68 pp.
*** today Mumbai, for historical reasons, the former name of the town is used here
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