In the summer of 1963, Nancy Eaton of Greenville sat down with her children and started plotting a dream road trip. Then, she packed them into the family car and headed to California.

Along the way, she wrote down the family’s day-to-day.

This is that record.

Her son, Dick Eaton, who still lives in Greenville and provided the Ledger-Transcript with a copy of his mother’s diary of the trip, said he remembers the highlights: a week at a dude ranch, seeing 17 bears in Yellowstone National Park, Carlsbad Caverns and visiting Disneyland with his brother, Chuck, for a night by themselves before a full family visit.

“We were the perfect age group,” said Dick of his siblings. There was a crowd of them in the station wagon: Dick, age 10; Chuck, 13; Betsy, 15; Jane, 14; and Susan, 12, along with their mother. While their father did come to visit them during one stop along the trail, he spent most of the summer tending the homestead and working.

“Looking back at it, by golly, it’s pretty ambitious,” Dick said. “But for my family, it was a simple day-to-day. Now, I realize it probably wasn’t as simple as I made it out to be as a 10-year-old.”

Jane Eaton, who now lives in Robbinston, Maine, said she later learned firsthand just how not-simple that trip was, when she attempted to take her own children on a trip to Niagara from her home in eastern Maine.

“It didn’t work out,” Jane said with a laugh. “They wouldn’t do anything I asked. It didn’t work out for me. My mother was exceptional.”

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Nancy Eaton died at the age of 57 of pneumonia complications, and had breathing complications her entire life, but Jane said she never let it stop her from doing anything she wanted to do, including having a large family despite her doctor recommending against pregnancy. Jane recalled one story a friend shared with her after her mother’s death, of Nancy taking the Girl Scout troop on a bicycle trip from Greenville to Wilton, and making it despite having to take puffs on her inhaler.

“She said, ‘Your mother could do anything.’ Which was true,” Jane said.

Jane said in part the trip was to take a tour around the country, but it was also to visit the family’s many far-away friends. Her mother had attended Yale School of Nursing, and there, had developed close friendships with a group, and when they said their goodbyes, agreed to continue to be pen pals with one another.

The group agreed to a round-robin style writing endeavor, where one person would start the chain, and send a letter to another member of the group. That member would also write a letter, but instead of returning it to the original writer, would send both letters on to the next member. By the time the original writer got a reply, it would include letters from the entire friend group, with updates about their lives. The original writer would take out their own letter – which by now would have made the entire round – write a new one, and the whole package would continue on again.

“These women were early in their marriages, having their first kids, and there was always that kind of news,” Jane said. “They had some rules – you were supposed to reply to the letters within a month -- but no one ever abided by it.”

Jane and Susan were also avid pen pals with many people across the country, usually those that they had never met, and their mother agreed to allow Jane to select three friends to stop and see. Jane said she was an avid letter-writer as a child, and would scour children’s magazines for pen pal requests. She would sometimes just send a letter to a town’s postmaster, asking if there were anyone children in town interested in a pen pal. She said she sent those kinds of cold-call letters to towns with interesting names – such as Weed, Calif., and also any town that shared her last name of Eaton.

Jane said that while she didn’t think much of it at the time, she thinks her mother’s own independence of spirit instilled the same in her children. Jane recalled that when her sister Betsy was attending graduate school across the country, the sisters did their own road trip traveling across the country, and Jane settled for a summer in Nevada with a boy who, coincidentally, she had met on their original family road trip and maintained a pen pal relationship with. 

“In retrospect, that was the real effect of taking me on that trip,” Jane said. “All these people though that we weren’t going to make it – my mother had not a doubt. I moved to a rural, isolated part of Maine in my late 20s, and there were many women who would not drive a few hours away to Bangor without their husbands. My mother did it. I probably would never have gone cross-country, Betsy probably would not have applied to grad school cross-country, if we hadn’t had her as an example in our lives.”

Jane recalled one time when the car ran out of gas, and her mother left the five children in the car to go off with a man with a gas can to retrieve gas.

“Can you imagine, today? She had faith in humanity, I think,” Jane said.

Nancy’s diary touches upon some of the sights she and her children see, sometimes comments on the prices of a overnight stay or a meal in 1963 and outlines the way that each of her children had “jobs,” including sharing in cooking duty or navigating over the course of the trip.

Though the first entry is not dated, Dick Eaton recalls leaving shortly after the end of the school year, with the goal of reaching the West Coast.This, the first in an 10-part series following the Eatons’ cross country trip, outlines leaving New Hampshire, a visit with Nancy’s mother in New Paltz, N.Y., and a stop by Hershey, Pa.. Before leaving, the family received visits from multiple friends giving them well-wishes and gifts for the trip.

Editor’s Note: The following is a diary written by Anna “Nancy” Woodbridge Eaton in the summer of 1963, and has been edited minimally to maintain the original spirit in which it was written. Included in the record are photographs taken by the family on the trip, as well as postcards saved by the Eaton children.

Such a farewell. Gifts, well wishes and personal visits. Bess brought me sneaker pads. Patti Wash-its, Mildred apples, Lorraine a snack bag, hard boiled eggs, salt, Cheez Its, Hershey bars, and a letter bag. Bob waited for an hour. Mildred was at the house at 8:00 and waited ’til 11:00.

We stopped at Beth’s for our picnic lunch. She was at camp and had already eaten.

Mother was upstairs not feeling well when we arrived but she really perked up and finally had dinner with us.

The children climbed trees and played games outdoors after our delicious roast lamb dinner which Helen had prepared. Helen had come back early so to be there for us. That was pretty nice of her. John, Mary Lu, Janet, Mother and Betsy and I visited on the front porch. Jane went to Janet’s to write letters. Mother and I went to bed early, the children following after watching television.

Mother and I visited early in the a.m. and then back to sleep. Breakfast before 7:30 and Mother was up with us. Away 8:10. Coffee break about 10:00. At noon we stopped at Shartlesville, PA. Route 22 at Roadside America “World’s Greatest Indoor Miniature Village.” There were picnic tables and a zoo so we decided to stop for lunch. We decided to Village was a come on, hardly worth $1.00 and not $5 for the 5 over 10, but when Chuck came out with information that the price would be $1 for those over 12, 3 of us entered and urged the others. It was thoroughly worthwhile. The folder tells all about it. Bullun pushed along the rail-made trans, trollys run, people move, chopping, sawing wood. Then everyone was asked to stop and watch night descend on the town. This started with frogs peeping and at dawn, the flag. The Star Spangled Banner. Houses were about 1 ft. square.

Then on to Hershey where we took the 3:00 p.m. tour. Mixing big vats of choc. – stirred 72 hrs. and then molding, wrapping, packaging. Then passed the zoo, amusement area, swimming pool and out to the Rose Gardens which certainly were at their prime. We did not go up to the hotel.

We did not like the first camping area in the AAA guide and went to High Meadow near Hummelston which was very nice – new. The kids set up camp quickly. Susan got supper of canned stew, celery, bread and cantaloupe.

We drove to Hershey after supper to grocery shop. Tried to cure Betsy of backseat driving.