My wife's grandmother travelled to the USA on the Queen Elizabeth in 1948. We are emigrating to the USA on the QM2 in about 8 weeks, and while clearing out we found menus, concert lists, a postcard, and passenger lists from that classic liner. We donated them to Cunard as they are history. I love the history of liners and how they are built etc! I must have the ocean in my blood.
That was very generous of you. It must have been hard giving up such wonderful items. It's great you wanted to preserve the history. I wish more people would.
It was an easy decision. I hope they put the items on the new Queem Elizabeth. They make very interesting reading. I just love the history and the mystique of the ocean liners.
Nice to meet you, Barney. Welcome to cruise-chat, from another ocean liner aficionado.
That was so kind and generous of you to donate your family's mementos from "Lizzie" to Cunard. I was just telling my Mom yesterday (regarding something else) that she should look into donating years of photos taken inside a once vibrant building that is about to be torn down. Better to give them to a historical society than to sit in a box in her garage.
Back to Lizzie... I have a close friend who spent a large part of her childhood crossing the oceans on liners with her parents, and Lizzie was her favorite. This would have been a little later than when your wife's grandmother was onboard. I love hearing her stories about Lizzie and the other liners on which she sailed.
My family and I did a westbound crossing on Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2003. It was fantastic. There's nothing like leaving the world behind for a few days, not just forgetting what day it is, but what year it is!
It is quite exciting to find such historical artifacts and to donate them. It would be nice if they were on the new Queen Elizabeth. I have always been interested in the history of these ships, though we have never been on a cruise. It was my wife who suggested we use to Queen Mary 2 to emigrate to the USA. I think it is very apt as quite a lot of immigrants in the past used to go by liner. It is all very exciting. Have you been on a liner and what is it like?
I have, although all had been converted to cruise ships by then. This includes SS Seabreeze, SS Oceanbreeze, Regal Empress, and - the grand dame - SS Norway. I also stayed a couple of nights in the Queen Mary hotel, and visited SS Rotterdam (V) as a child, yet those don't quite count.
My only true liner experience was a Southampton-New York crossing on QE2 in 2003. It was amazing. I wrote a review on one of our affiliated sites, located here.
Yes its really a wise decision taken by you to donate the artifacts. Such artifacts are really not easy to find and donating them is a very wise decision.