John and Susan Take European SoJourn

December 1988 - Kotzebue, AK

Ever since John and Susan met at the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1982, they dreamed of traveling to Europe together. John had lived and studied for a year in Ireland in the mid-1970s and also had spent six months in Norway in 1977. Susan had lived and studied French for a year from 1979-80 in Paris.

“We both wanted to introduce friends and relatives to the other,” said Susan. “I had told John many stories about France, and he had told many, many stories about Ireland and Norway.”

For years while living in Fairbanks, Susan and John had to postpone their dream European excursion. Both worked as full-time journalists. The relatively low pay and two-week annual vacations offered little opportunity for the couple to tour Europe.

“It is frustrating for both of us,” said John, but added that he did manage to visit Ireland briefly in 1985 on assignment for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

So after years of anticipation, Susan and John landed jobs with nine-month contracts when switching from journalism to education. Consequently, they traveled some six weeks during the summer of ‘88 throughout northern Europe visiting good friends and relatives.

“The trip turned out better than we both had expected,” John said. “We found out that we enjoyed traveling together and the adventure being on the road.”

The couple flew from Alaska to Copenhagen, where they changed planes and few on to goregou, breathtaking Norway, where they visited Torget Espeland, an old friend of John’s who still lives on the island where John worked as a farm hand in 1977.

John and Susan traveled Europe by train, having purchased s Eurail pass in Alaska before they left.

In Germany, John and Susan visited Christi O’Mahoney and her late husband, Eurene, are old friends of John’s when they were “classmates” at University College, Dublin.

After Germany, the couple traveled to Switzerland, where the two visite Peter and diana Dachler and their youngest son, Niels. Diana is a former student of Susan’s father from when Bob and Patricia Andrews lived in Hawaii. Diana later became close friends with Susan’s mother after they discovered they were neighbors in Columbia, Maryland, some years later. Susan and John also traveled to the highest point in the Alps, Jungfrauhoch, before taking a fast train to Paris to visit Susan’s friends there, including Violaine Perry. Susan and John also visited a yoga camp in the chateaux country in rural France. They also toured the D-day beaches of Normandy and sailed to Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, where John believes his ancestor, Nicolas Cree, was born before emigrating to Massachusetts Bay Colony in the late 1600s. Today, Jersey swarms with English tourists, asthe islands enjoy the most sunshine in all of Britain.

Susan and John sailed to Ireland a few days after Jersey, arriving on the republic’s southern coast on a windy, rainy August day. They immediately took a bus to County Waterford and met Seamus Kirwan, one of John’s college roommates, and his wife, Cairein Phillips. The couple lives on a gorgeous, prosperous, 200-acre dairy farm that wa been in Seamus’ family for generations. Seamus and Cairein drove Susan and John to Dublin for a reunion with Johnny Cummins, [another Irishman], Mary Bernadette, and their two children. Johnny co-owns and operates his own video production company. The couple also spent a fun-filled evening with Frank Ryan, another old roommate, and Liam, Frank’s friend, and Bobby Russell, John’s Irish cousin. Frank teaches at the Institute of Public Administration in Dublin.

John and Susan also spent a few days in Julianstown visiting John’s Aunt Elizabeth and the rest of the Russells before a brief tour of the west of Ireland, from where they flew in Ireland.

In London, John and Susan stayed with Barbara and John Tyman and their two boys, Phillip and Robert. Barbara lived with the Andrews family for a year as a nanny for Susan’s brother, Jonathan, in the 1960s. Susan and John also met John’s great aunt Bridgett, his grandfather’s sister, for the first time. She has lived in London for decades after emigrating there from Ireland as a young woman.

From London, John and Susan flew to Copenhagen, then to Seattle, Anchorage, and finally to Fairbanks, where they spent about two weeks gearing up for another year in the Arctic. At the end of August, they flew to Kotzebue with Kubla, their Springer Spaniel cartoon character, and Bobby, their cat, who spent the summer at “camp” with the couple’s good friends in Fairbanks, Tom and Barbara Bradley.

“It was good to get settled again,” said Susan. “We had promised each other we would take a long trip like this before we started a family. I think we’ll always be glad that we kept this promise.”