The Churchill Series – July 31, 2006

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In late September, 1929 Churchill, along with his son, Randolph, his brother, Jack, and Jack’s son, Johnny, left California on the last leg of a three month long trip that had taken them across Canada and down the West coast to California. Ahead of them was a train journey to New York.

The party traveled as far as Chicago in a private car of Charles Schwab, President of Bethlehem Steel Company. Churchill and Schwab had met during WWI when Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and Schwab’s company made submarines for the Royal Navy.

One of the Churchill's first stops along the way was at the Grand Canyon. Their rail car was parked by the South rim. The party stayed twenty-four hours which gave the Churchill’s plenty of time to explore the canyon.

There’s something else I can’t document but don’t doubt helps explain their twenty-four hour stay at the canyon. I think Churchill, by 1929 a skilled amateur painter extraordinarily sensitive to color, wanted to see the canyon’s varied rock and sand strata change hues, even colors, as the sun and moon played on them.

Churchill later wrote Clementine a description of the canyon’s great depth and colors which he said were “scarcely exaggerated.”

From the Grand Canyon the party continued its journey through the Rockies and across the plains. For most of the trip, Churchill worked on newspaper and magazine articles.

Tomorrow, Churchill gives a speech in Chicago, changes trains, and heads for New York.
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Martin Gilbert, Churchill and America (pgs. 118-119)