Latest / Ridiculous History / Around the World in a Model T: The Story of Aloha Wanderwell

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Around the World in a Model T: The Story of Aloha Wanderwell · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. According to a study that we just made
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Speaker 1: up before we went on the air, many of our
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Speaker 1: fellow listeners are checking out Ridiculous History while they're in
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Speaker 1: the car, while they're in traffic. Instead of honking your horn,
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Speaker 1: you're hopefully laughing at our terrible puns. Uh. And today's
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Speaker 1: episode is just for you automotive lovers. Hi, my name
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Speaker 1: is Ben, Hey, my name is non Ben. You know
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Speaker 1: what you are, after all, you're my wonder well a
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Speaker 1: loha to YouTube, thank you, and aloha of course to
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Speaker 1: our super producer Casey pegram Mahalo, there we go. This
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Speaker 1: guy knows this stuff. Casey, What did you fall on
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Speaker 1: the Blur versus Oasis Continuum? Definitely more on the Blur side.
1:15
Speaker 1: On the Blur side, who who it's been? Casey on
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Speaker 1: the case full disclosure. We just went to an amazing
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Speaker 1: show last night. We saw some Australian rock bands, so
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Speaker 1: shout out to all of our Australian listeners if you've
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Speaker 1: heard of who were There was Orb stone Field and
1:36
Speaker 1: then the Big Closer King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
1:39
Speaker 1: and he gives heads out there. Is that the Is
1:42
Speaker 1: that the nomenclature? Yeah? Oh wow. Yeah. They have their
1:45
Speaker 1: own festival in Australia called gis Fest. Well, they are
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Speaker 1: super prolific to superal They made like five full length
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Speaker 1: records a couple of years ago in one single year,
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Speaker 1: totally independently record and release all that stuff. UM, huge
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Speaker 1: fan of theirs. In fact, I think it was either
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Speaker 1: on this podcast. No, I think it was on stuff
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Speaker 1: that I want you to know where I was distracted
2:04
Speaker 1: because I was buying my tickets the day they came
2:06
Speaker 1: out and bought them like got six months ago, and
2:09
Speaker 1: uh it was it was worth worth the weight for sure.
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Speaker 1: So today's episode is also about a very prolific person.
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Speaker 1: Today's episode is about the adventures of Idris Galcia Hall.
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Speaker 1: But you may know her better as Aloha wonder Well,
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Speaker 1: or you may, like us, not know her at all,
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Speaker 1: because I was certainly unfamiliar with the story and it
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Speaker 1: is a doozy Aloha wonder Well not not wonder Wall
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Speaker 1: like my my funny, funny joke at the top of
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Speaker 1: the show. Uh. In nineteen twenty two, wonder Well we're
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Speaker 1: gonna refer to her as that moving forward joined a race.
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Speaker 1: It was more than a race. It was almost like
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Speaker 1: an automotive cult kind of I mean, it was very
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Speaker 1: much this event that was designed for both optics in
2:56
Speaker 1: terms of like being this huge kind of spectacle with
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Speaker 1: these caravans of model T Fords trekking across forty three
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Speaker 1: countries four continents um and seeing some incredible sites along
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Speaker 1: the way. That's right. No, So, across the nineteen twenties,
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Speaker 1: when Aloha was still a teenager, she traveled almost four
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand miles across a total of eventually what would
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Speaker 1: become eighty countries. How did she get here? How did
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Speaker 1: she get involved in this strange thing? There is a
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Speaker 1: tale here, you see. Aloha was born on October nineteen
3:34
Speaker 1: o six in Winnipeg, and her life did have some tragedy,
3:41
Speaker 1: had some bumps along the road because at the start
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Speaker 1: of World War One, her stepfather joined the Canadian Expeditionary
3:49
Speaker 1: Force and eventually he was killed in combat. During this time,
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Speaker 1: the person who had become known as Aloha was living
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Speaker 1: in a pretty strict French convent school while her mother
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Speaker 1: was searching for her husband's body. And while Aloha was
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Speaker 1: living in this very structured, pretty uptight environment, she started
4:16
Speaker 1: to dream of far away lands. She wanted to get
4:19
Speaker 1: out there, you know what I mean, see what is
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Speaker 1: over the next horizon. She wrote in her memoir published
4:26
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. I ached for action, but I did
4:29
Speaker 1: not know in which direction to go. I had already
4:32
Speaker 1: bothered my mother on the subject of my earning money.
4:35
Speaker 1: I wanted a career. I wanted to become the man
4:38
Speaker 1: of the family. That part's interesting because she was a tomboy.
4:40
Speaker 1: She really was. She was a self described independent tomboy.
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Speaker 1: Great article on Atlas Obscura, the first woman to drive
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Speaker 1: around the world, wore men's breaches, and had a pet monkey.
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Speaker 1: We're gonna get there. As she grew up, her imagination
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Speaker 1: was really fed by adventure novels and stories by Rudyard Kipling,
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Speaker 1: Edgar Rice Burrows, folks like W. H. G. Kingston Um.
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Speaker 1: And when she was sixteen, she read an advertisement that
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Speaker 1: would change everything for her. And I don't want to
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Speaker 1: bury the lead. I referred to this automotive expedition as
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Speaker 1: almost like a cult on wheels. And we're gonna start
5:17
Speaker 1: to see kind of why at the age of sixteen,
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Speaker 1: she saw this ad for the wonder Well Expedition and
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Speaker 1: that was in the Paris Harold and this is what
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Speaker 1: the tagline was, Brains, Beauty and breaches World tour offer
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Speaker 1: for lucky young women wanted to join an expedition Asia Africa.
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Speaker 1: This brings out my car, stuff blood, It's got me
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Speaker 1: raring to go here. The wander Well Expedition was the
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Speaker 1: brainchild of a man named Walter wander Well, whose real
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Speaker 1: name just spoiler alert, is not Walter wonder Well. He
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Speaker 1: was a little bit of a sketchy figure who was
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Speaker 1: what we would call larger than life. He was actually
6:00
Speaker 1: put in jail during World War One because the FED
6:04
Speaker 1: suspected him of being a German spy. He started the
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Speaker 1: Wonderwell Expedition in ninety one with something called a million
6:13
Speaker 1: dollar wager. This was an endurance race around the world
6:18
Speaker 1: with two teams racing four Model T s, and the
6:22
Speaker 1: way that they were gauging success in the race was
6:25
Speaker 1: entirely based on the number of countries visited. Right, So
6:29
Speaker 1: you would tally up at the end the number of
6:33
Speaker 1: countries your team had gone to, and whomever had the
6:36
Speaker 1: most countries in their Tally would win. This was exactly
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Speaker 1: what Aloha wander Well was looking for. She met with
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Speaker 1: Walter wonder Well, who was referred to as Captain wonder Well,
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Speaker 1: in Paris, and she got a seat on the expedition.
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Speaker 1: She wore a lot of hats while she was doing this.
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Speaker 1: She was the translator, she was driving, She was all
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Speaker 1: so and this is amazing. She was filming so much stuff.
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Speaker 1: We actually have a clip that will just throw to
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Speaker 1: real quick so you can get kind of a sense
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Speaker 1: of the adventure. Here. Exciting thoughts racing through my mind.
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Speaker 1: Must have been responsible for the storm we ran into
7:14
Speaker 1: of Haiti. All hands rotea don dick hatches battened down,
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Speaker 1: and as our ship stuck her nails into the storm,
7:21
Speaker 1: huge waves broke over the entire superstructure, drenching even those
7:26
Speaker 1: on the bridge and nearly washing away the lifeboats. Perfect Now,
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Speaker 1: she did take the name Aloha wonder Well. Captain Walter
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Speaker 1: Wonderwell was married at the time, just to be clear
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Speaker 1: about that. But very quickly Aloha became the face of
7:44
Speaker 1: the entire adventure. People loved seeing her in the middle
7:48
Speaker 1: and media arrests, visiting all these interesting places that most
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Speaker 1: people would never get a chance to see otherwise. And
7:56
Speaker 1: they loved her. The media loved her. Yeah, she was
7:58
Speaker 1: also gorgeous. I mean she really have the appearance of
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Speaker 1: a movie star, very statue asque, very pretty face, um
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Speaker 1: and very well spoken. I think she spoke of four languages,
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Speaker 1: and she learned more on the trip. She picked up
8:11
Speaker 1: I believe, um some Asian languages. Yes, so she spoke.
8:14
Speaker 1: She was fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. And
8:19
Speaker 1: she also spoke a little bit of Russian, Chinese and
8:23
Speaker 1: Japanese I think specifically Mandarin. That but don't quote me
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Speaker 1: on that. Uh So when she got her name, when
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Speaker 1: she was aloha wonder well, as she says inner memoir again,
8:34
Speaker 1: she says, we were off. The whole world was out there.
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Speaker 1: I was reaching for it, the world reaching for me. Ecstasy,
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Speaker 1: the ravishing thrill. And I want to go back to
8:43
Speaker 1: something you brought up. No, uh that about her appearance, right,
8:48
Speaker 1: She was six ft tall, She was an imposing figure,
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Speaker 1: and she was going to countries where people legitimately thought
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Speaker 1: she was a movie star. You know what I mean,
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Speaker 1: This is like a this is a real life Hollywood
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Speaker 1: figure to a lot of people that she's visiting, and
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Speaker 1: a lot of the footage that she captured ends up
9:09
Speaker 1: becoming incredibly crucial to the historical record. And we should
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Speaker 1: say also she did not start off as the face
9:18
Speaker 1: of the expedition. She started off in what you could
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Speaker 1: kind of call a p a production assistant position. She
9:24
Speaker 1: was a secretary and assistant. But she worked way up right,
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Speaker 1: she absolutely did um And the details around how she
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Speaker 1: kind of rose in the ranks in her relationship with
9:34
Speaker 1: Captain Wonderwell or a little sketchy, but it does seem
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Speaker 1: like wonder Well uh and his wife split up, and
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Speaker 1: that's kind of when Aloha was able to kind of
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Speaker 1: like fill that position exactly exactly. And going back going
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Speaker 1: back to wonder Well himself, because the guy does deserve
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Speaker 1: a little more scrutiny, right, Yeah, going back to Wonderwell
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Speaker 1: himself when he when he was inspired by the League
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Speaker 1: of Nations to start this endurance race, he did not
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Speaker 1: meet with unanimous support because the FBI, of all places,
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Speaker 1: the FBI was worried that old Cap wonder Well might
10:14
Speaker 1: be starting some sort of mercenary or private army. That's right.
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Speaker 1: This uh, that expedition was called the Work Around the
10:21
Speaker 1: World Educational Club or wa wack, which I love UM
10:26
Speaker 1: and yeah it's true. I mean they really thought he
10:28
Speaker 1: was trying to assemble some kind of private army. I
10:31
Speaker 1: guess that's right. So wa WAK, despite having such a
10:34
Speaker 1: beautiful acronym, was suspected of being um, being not entirely
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Speaker 1: above the board. So ostensibly it was aimed at bringing
10:45
Speaker 1: people together some soft diplomacy. It was described by Aaron
10:49
Speaker 1: Blakemore writing for Time as something that purported to be
10:55
Speaker 1: an ad hoc international peacekeeping group right after the horrors
11:00
Speaker 1: of World War but it's real purpose was to generate
11:04
Speaker 1: money from a group of volunteer cadets whose dues actually
11:09
Speaker 1: paid for the trip. Right, So this already feels like
11:14
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of a money grab, maybe an
11:16
Speaker 1: intention grab to its critics. CAP also got some cash
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Speaker 1: from the Ford Motor Company. They donated those Model ts
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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, And I don't know, no, are you
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Speaker 1: super familiar with Model ts? Have you seen one? Yeah? Yeah?
11:40
Speaker 1: And there. Uh we did an episode years back entirely
11:43
Speaker 1: on how to actually start a model tea and get
11:45
Speaker 1: it running. These things are vicious beast They will and
11:50
Speaker 1: have broken people's arms just while they're in the process
11:53
Speaker 1: of trying to get the thing running, cranking it right,
11:55
Speaker 1: I mean you literally is isn't it like a thing
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Speaker 1: in the front that you have to have physically turn
11:59
Speaker 1: a crank? Yeah, get the engine kind of get the
12:02
Speaker 1: actual motor started. Yeah, and if it's having a bad day,
12:07
Speaker 1: it will swing that crank back at you. So be warned,
12:11
Speaker 1: be aware. I'm just saying this wasn't as easy as
12:14
Speaker 1: you know, hopping into um, hopping into a two thousand
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Speaker 1: sixteen Prius or something. So here we are, we're set up,
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Speaker 1: We've got all the pieces in place, right, the FBI
12:27
Speaker 1: has an arrested cap yet or anything like that. And
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Speaker 1: he says, I am going to compete against my wife
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Speaker 1: Nell in this race around the world. This goes back
12:39
Speaker 1: to what you were saying earlier, all about kind of
12:42
Speaker 1: this the ambiguous, the ambiguity around their rise to fame,
12:47
Speaker 1: uh so, and around the whole thing. The whole operation
12:50
Speaker 1: had some kind of a lot of questions surrounding it.
12:53
Speaker 1: I mean I threw our I threw around the term
12:55
Speaker 1: cult only because this guy was such an imposing character,
12:59
Speaker 1: a very care matic you know what I mean. He
13:01
Speaker 1: kind of had the folks, these volunteers almost under his sway.
13:04
Speaker 1: And just a little bit of backstory. His name originally
13:08
Speaker 1: was Valerian Johannes Paizinski. He was from Poland. That's about
13:13
Speaker 1: all we know about his background. Um, and he likely been,
13:16
Speaker 1: uh you were saying, changed his name to Captain Walter
13:19
Speaker 1: wonder Well because he wanted something a little less Polish sounding,
13:22
Speaker 1: a little more American dream kind of sounding right right exactly,
13:26
Speaker 1: and you know it worked, that's right. The wonder Well
13:31
Speaker 1: name was something that maybe lost to a lot of
13:34
Speaker 1: us today, but back in the twenties, people were very
13:37
Speaker 1: well aware of it. These were international celebrities. And Aloha
13:42
Speaker 1: actually took that name because her mother, when she found
13:45
Speaker 1: out that she was going to go on this tour, Um,
13:47
Speaker 1: she wasn't super happy about it and didn't want people
13:51
Speaker 1: thinking that her daughter was traveling in the company of
13:54
Speaker 1: a man or something like that. I don't know it
13:56
Speaker 1: was married, married man exactly. Um. So he uh. She
14:00
Speaker 1: had him declare Aloha his ward, which isn't really a
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Speaker 1: thing we do anymore. The idea of having award, which
14:07
Speaker 1: is like what Robin was on Batman. He was was
14:10
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne's ward and then for a while they were
14:13
Speaker 1: called proteges, which also sounds scheduled, the odd concept. I
14:17
Speaker 1: mean basically, does it mean like you kind of adopt somebody. Yeah,
14:20
Speaker 1: you're like you're like a full time mentor. That's what
14:23
Speaker 1: award is. So Also, if someone's parents died, for instance,
14:29
Speaker 1: and they were under the care of their uncle or
14:32
Speaker 1: not their aunt, then they would be the ward of
14:35
Speaker 1: that person. So yeah, words are not a not a
14:39
Speaker 1: thing that happens as often, or at least we don't
14:42
Speaker 1: describe it that way. But at the time it was
14:45
Speaker 1: seen as uh, it was seen as a way to
14:48
Speaker 1: be politically or socially correct. But back to the model
14:51
Speaker 1: t Ford um Ford really it was this was a
14:55
Speaker 1: good deal for Ford because he was really showcasing the
14:58
Speaker 1: durability of the mom te and the fact that they
15:02
Speaker 1: were easily reparable. Um they were pretty convinced that folks
15:06
Speaker 1: were doing the expedition that they could find parts to
15:09
Speaker 1: fix these cars no matter where they were around the world.
15:12
Speaker 1: They even did things like used kerosene in place of gas,
15:16
Speaker 1: and they mixed elephant fat with water to make oil,
15:21
Speaker 1: and they even took bananas and and squashed them to
15:25
Speaker 1: collect grease. To grease down the parts in the engine.
15:28
Speaker 1: I gotta say, look, Model t s are not gonna
15:31
Speaker 1: win races in terms of speed, but I'm on board
15:36
Speaker 1: with Dan Trace, who's a preserver of Model ts. He
15:39
Speaker 1: he wrote an essay about the expedition. These things are
15:42
Speaker 1: super sturdy. We also have to remember just how ubiquitous
15:46
Speaker 1: they were and how easy it was to mcgever things
15:51
Speaker 1: around these vehicles. Uh, wonder Wells team had a Model
15:56
Speaker 1: T for nicknamed Little Lizzy. These cars were picked specifically
16:01
Speaker 1: for the trip, of course, and they were forced to
16:05
Speaker 1: make a lot of these on the fly improvisations. Right.
16:09
Speaker 1: They were in China around the time the country was
16:13
Speaker 1: struck by a civil war in nineteen four, and they
16:17
Speaker 1: had to rely on these unorthodox methods. The kerosene you mentioned,
16:23
Speaker 1: the mixing of elephant fat and water for oil, things
16:26
Speaker 1: you just couldn't get away with in a modern car.
16:29
Speaker 1: And the continent of Africa. They actually had to get livestock,
16:33
Speaker 1: oxen and mules to tow their vehicles. And let's take
16:36
Speaker 1: a second and look at some of the amazing accolades
16:41
Speaker 1: that Aloha wonder Well racked up during her time. So
16:46
Speaker 1: she was taken captive by bandits by ne'er do Wells
16:51
Speaker 1: near the Great Wall of China, and she managed to
16:55
Speaker 1: get everybody out of this hostage situation by t seen
17:00
Speaker 1: the bandits how to make machine gun nests and then
17:04
Speaker 1: teaching them how to use automatic weapons. Did she know
17:07
Speaker 1: all that? She just learned it from just being scrappy
17:10
Speaker 1: and just like you know, traveling around. Well, there is
17:13
Speaker 1: a rumor that she joined the French Foreign Legion disguised
17:17
Speaker 1: as a dude, because even now the French Foreign Legion
17:19
Speaker 1: doesn't allow female members. She is suspected to have fought
17:24
Speaker 1: in desert warfare, So yeah, she definitely. We do know
17:29
Speaker 1: for sure that she was made an honorary colonel in
17:32
Speaker 1: the Siberian Army, right, so we know that she probably
17:35
Speaker 1: did have some sort of, if not military experience, familiarity
17:40
Speaker 1: with military tactics and firearms and so on. This is
17:44
Speaker 1: a silly question, man, I mean, like, for the portions
17:47
Speaker 1: of the trip that required crossing the ocean, I guess
17:49
Speaker 1: they loaded all the cars up onto some kind of freighter.
17:52
Speaker 1: Well one would assume, right, because model ts are a
17:54
Speaker 1: lot of things, but they're not seaworthy. True, So uh
17:58
Speaker 1: that we also know that Cap wonder well bought a craft,
18:03
Speaker 1: bought a bought a boat, a ship called the Karma
18:06
Speaker 1: with a C C A R M A uh Ford
18:11
Speaker 1: bucks at some point. And this this was not an
18:15
Speaker 1: impressive boat. He was also I gotta say, man, I know,
18:20
Speaker 1: I keep going back to it, but he was. He
18:24
Speaker 1: was pretty sketchy, right. He fell in love with a
18:27
Speaker 1: Loha while they were on while they were in the
18:30
Speaker 1: middle of this expedition, and they married in n But
18:34
Speaker 1: if you look back at that Atlas Obscura article, uh
18:38
Speaker 1: that you mentioned earlier, you'll see that people believe the
18:42
Speaker 1: marriage may have been a marriage of convenience, a way
18:46
Speaker 1: of stopping the FBI from arresting Cap, who was still
18:50
Speaker 1: like they put him in jail for a second, thank you,
18:52
Speaker 1: as German spy, and they let him go, but they
18:54
Speaker 1: always still suspected that he might be associated with spycraft. Uh.
18:59
Speaker 1: They in to arrest him on trafficking charges because we
19:04
Speaker 1: have to remember this time human trafficking Aloha, trafficking Aloha
19:08
Speaker 1: because at this time she's still a teenager. Right. So
19:11
Speaker 1: as soon as they got back in the US, Cap
19:14
Speaker 1: got a divorce, they got married and they both walked
19:17
Speaker 1: away Scott free. Yeah, and they spent a lot of
19:21
Speaker 1: time continuing to travel after having two kids together, Nile
19:24
Speaker 1: and Valerie. They went to places like Cuba and South Africa,
19:29
Speaker 1: and Aloha kept rolling her camera. Um, and that included
19:32
Speaker 1: some really important films of the indigenous Borrero people of Brazil.
19:38
Speaker 1: And she kind of got a little bit of a
19:41
Speaker 1: bad rap because of her association with uh Captain Wonderwell,
19:46
Speaker 1: because he was seen as kind of a little bit
19:49
Speaker 1: sketchy still and and not really the most upstanding citizen
19:52
Speaker 1: and was kind of seen as a bit of a
19:54
Speaker 1: con man right right, a smooth talk or real glad
19:59
Speaker 1: hand er. This is where this story takes a true
20:02
Speaker 1: crime turn. On December five, the day before the wonder
20:15
Speaker 1: Wells are going to make another trip to South America,
20:19
Speaker 1: Captain Walter wonder Well is shot fatally in the back
20:23
Speaker 1: by an unidentified assassin. This murder happens on his boat
20:29
Speaker 1: on the Karma. It's anchored near Long Beach, California, and
20:34
Speaker 1: right away the police have two very clear suspects, William
20:38
Speaker 1: James Guy and Edward Eugene Fernando Montague, who is also
20:43
Speaker 1: the son of the Duke of Manchester. That's that's such
20:46
Speaker 1: an extra name that sounds like a character and clue
20:49
Speaker 1: it totally does. It's fantastic. But he he ends up
20:52
Speaker 1: slipping the noose and William James Guy is actually charged
20:56
Speaker 1: for the murder and tried and his court case is
20:59
Speaker 1: a real fiasco. That's true. This was also sort of
21:03
Speaker 1: a there was a legal case, but there was also
21:06
Speaker 1: a court of public opinion case, and a lot of
21:09
Speaker 1: people say that the fact that guy was a handsome
21:14
Speaker 1: person and the fact that he he kind of had
21:16
Speaker 1: a cool vibe. William James Guy was this sort of
21:20
Speaker 1: dude you would sit down and grab a beer with
21:22
Speaker 1: or something, so people will say that his wonderful bedside
21:27
Speaker 1: manner swayed the jury during his trial and led to
21:31
Speaker 1: him eventually being acquitted. It also did not help that
21:35
Speaker 1: Walter wonder Well was a known shadester. I'm gonna I
21:40
Speaker 1: think that's a good word. I'm gonna point that he
21:41
Speaker 1: was a known shadester, a womanizer and beyond a divisive figure.
21:47
Speaker 1: A lot of people thought this guy was a criminal.
21:49
Speaker 1: And guy was actually a member of that expedition uh
21:52
Speaker 1: in wonder Wall's crew one to South Africa and he
21:58
Speaker 1: was not a fan of Walter all. He claimed that
22:01
Speaker 1: he had swindled him out of money and had actually
22:04
Speaker 1: single handedly destroyed his marriage. And there appears to be
22:09
Speaker 1: more than a dollar of truth to that. Back to Aloha,
22:14
Speaker 1: so law enforcement never names her as a suspect in
22:18
Speaker 1: the murder, but they do think she is behaving in
22:22
Speaker 1: an odd way, so odd like she to the police.
22:27
Speaker 1: At least, she did not seem like a distraught widow.
22:31
Speaker 1: She did not seem as upset as they thought she
22:34
Speaker 1: would be, and this left a bad mark on her character.
22:37
Speaker 1: In the press, people started referring to her as the
22:40
Speaker 1: Rhinestone widow. A year after capps death, Aloha marys a
22:46
Speaker 1: guy named Walter Baker. He is a former cameraman. He
22:50
Speaker 1: helped wonder Well start Wawak. This is the thing. The
22:55
Speaker 1: press goes nuts and bananas over this second marriage, with
23:02
Speaker 1: Aloha only waiting a year after her first husband's death.
23:07
Speaker 1: But they brushed it off jay Z style. You know,
23:10
Speaker 1: they got the dirt off their shoulder. They continued traveling
23:13
Speaker 1: around the world. They were always filming stuff. They were lecturing,
23:17
Speaker 1: you know, they were doing like a Ted Talk kind
23:19
Speaker 1: of thing. And they went to New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia, Cambodia, India,
23:25
Speaker 1: and more more places. Eventually, like many world adventurers do,
23:31
Speaker 1: they settled down in Cincinnati. Yeah, and that's more or
23:33
Speaker 1: less where the story ends, at least as far as
23:35
Speaker 1: her travels are concerned. Um. She passed away at the
23:38
Speaker 1: age of ninety uh and the crazy thing as as
23:41
Speaker 1: as as well known as she was at the time,
23:45
Speaker 1: as we said at the top of the show, neither
23:46
Speaker 1: one of us, I don't believe it, heard of this
23:48
Speaker 1: story before. She's referred to as like the Amelia Earhart
23:51
Speaker 1: of the automobile. She was one of the most well
23:54
Speaker 1: traveled women, um in the world really at the time. Yeah,
23:59
Speaker 1: and you can see a lot of her work in
24:02
Speaker 1: various museums today because she was alive until what six
24:08
Speaker 1: She was alive at the same time a lot of
24:10
Speaker 1: us listening were alive, which I think I think is amazing.
24:15
Speaker 1: According to Richard Diamond, who has wonder Well's grandson, she
24:20
Speaker 1: has been sort of this open secret for years to
24:24
Speaker 1: history buffs. She also kept exceptional records and scrapbooks and
24:30
Speaker 1: diaries and journals and gathered, as we said, all this
24:34
Speaker 1: amazing video and audio footage. Some of her work is
24:38
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and
24:42
Speaker 1: Sciences film Archive. She also submitted her documentary Car and
24:48
Speaker 1: Camera Around the World to Henry Ford. But maybe this
24:53
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons it's not more well known.
24:56
Speaker 1: Henry Ford looked at it and he said, a little Lizzie,
25:00
Speaker 1: the nickname of the model t again wasn't important enough
25:04
Speaker 1: to be showcased in the World War two effort because
25:07
Speaker 1: it was going to be sort of a propagandistic pr thing, right.
25:11
Speaker 1: I think they ended up having destroyed it. Yep. And
25:16
Speaker 1: you can still find her book today. If you'd like
25:18
Speaker 1: to learn more about Aloha, you can find her book
25:20
Speaker 1: Call to Adventure on Amazon. Oh. Also, her grandson Mr
25:25
Speaker 1: Diamond made a Twitter account for her, which I think
25:28
Speaker 1: is delightful. It really is, and I want to point
25:30
Speaker 1: out to that she was also alive the year the
25:36
Speaker 1: Oasis smash hit wonder Wall came out. Nice call back there, man,
25:40
Speaker 1: I think you brought that around really well. And I
25:42
Speaker 1: don't think we mentioned I think we teased at the
25:44
Speaker 1: top of the show. We don't know a whole hell
25:45
Speaker 1: of a lot about this other than that It's true
25:46
Speaker 1: that she existed, but she had a pet monkey named
25:50
Speaker 1: Chango during all of these adventures. Uh, and that's just delightful. Yes. Yeah.
25:56
Speaker 1: You can see a picture of her and Walter and
26:00
Speaker 1: Chaango from nineteen four in China. It's on the Twitter feed.
26:07
Speaker 1: So a life well lived. I don't know about you, guys,
26:10
Speaker 1: but I am a fan of road trips and taking
26:12
Speaker 1: this to the nth degree is a personal dream of mine.
26:17
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Let us know about
26:20
Speaker 1: the most epic road trip you've ever taken. Where's the
26:23
Speaker 1: weirdest place you ended up? You can find us on Facebook.
26:27
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter. You can find us
26:30
Speaker 1: on Instagram, not just as a show, but as individuals,
26:34
Speaker 1: so you can catch up with our own travels on
26:36
Speaker 1: our personal instagrams. You can find me at how Now
26:39
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and you can find me at Ben Bolan
26:42
Speaker 1: on Instagram, where at Ben Bolan hs W on Twitter. Man,
26:47
Speaker 1: here we are in the studio, and back in the twenties,
26:50
Speaker 1: people were like making elephant fat into oil and driving
26:54
Speaker 1: through you know, the hinterlands of the world. Pretty exciting stuff.
26:57
Speaker 1: Back not to say that you're not a pretty well
26:59
Speaker 1: trapped gentlemen yourself, sir, I get kicked into and out
27:03
Speaker 1: of a lot of places, So you say so, You
27:05
Speaker 1: say so. Huge. Thanks to super producer Casey Pagram for
27:09
Speaker 1: being our travel buddy, uh and podcast Land at least um.
27:13
Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Thanks to
27:15
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciota is here in spirit. Thanks to Ryan Embarrish
27:19
Speaker 1: and Gabe Lousier, our research associates. Tonight, I thought it
27:23
Speaker 1: was awesome to have Ryan on the show. We've got
27:26
Speaker 1: to have him back sometime soon. What do you say? Yeah,
27:28
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that's gonna happen week week. Nuch nuche.
27:32
Speaker 1: We'll see next time, Folks. For more podcasts for my
27:43
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
27:46
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.