Travels in Africa

Goodbye, Port Elizabeth! I was off to college and the day of my departure from South Africa finally arrived! A sturdy steamer trunk was filled with most of what I’d need for school, including outfits I’d sewn from Vogue patterns, some out of Egyptian cotton purchased on the Cape to Cairo expedition I’d made several […]

Recycling a post first published in late 2010, Travels in Africa offers bits from 16-year-old Donanne Ralston’s letters to her grandparents. They were in California; she was in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Donanne’s father Don Ralston was stationed there as the American Consul. March 1, 1959 Dear Californians, Am very pleased to have been invited […]

At a time when few Americans had any consciousness of Africa, Donanne Ralston was living the life of an American diplomat’s daughter in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  Here’s her account of what that was like for her mother as the consul’s wife. My mother’s “job” was to be the Consulate’s official hostess, a task to […]

At a time when few Americans had any consciousness of Africa, Donanne Ralston was living the life of an American diplomat’s daughter in South Africa.  Here’s her account of what that was like. We were living in Port Elizabeth in the Union of South Africa, a busy Indian Ocean port on Algoa Bay.  My dad […]

Port Elizabeth, South Africa, August, 1960 Goodbye, Port Elizabeth! I was off to college and the day of my departure from South Africa finally arrived! A sturdy steamer trunk was filled with most of what I’d need for school, including outfits I’d sewn from Vogue patterns, some out of Egyptian cotton purchased on the Cape […]

Before sending Fred off to the remote Equateur, TIA will break chronology and offer bits from sixteen-year-old Donanne’s reports to her grandparents on her adventures in Port Elizabeth and her travels outside it. Donanne’s father Don Ralston was stationed there as the American Consul. March 1, 1959 Dear Californians, Am very pleased to have been […]

At a time when few Americans had any consciousness of Africa, Donanne Ralston, then a teenaged diplomat’s daughter, took a trip from Cape to Cairo just before leaving for college.  Here’s her account: I was about to be eighteen. Before I started college, our family of three would travel the length of the continent, from […]

At a time when few Americans had any consciousness of Africa, Donanne Ralston was living the life of an American diplomat’s daughter in South Africa.  Here’s her account of what that was like: We were living in Port Elizabeth in the Union of South Africa, a busy Indian Ocean port on Algoa Bay.  My dad […]