In 1939, Marion and Harold took a luxury cruise to Bermuda on board the ocean liner, the Bermuda Monarch. This was just at the end of the Great Depression. Harold and Marion were hard-working teachers. During parts of the Depression, they worked for room and board only because the schools that employed them could not afford to pay them. The majority of their vacations were road or train trips home to Amherst (Massachusetts) or McKeesport and Farmington (Pennsylvania) to see family. The only cost was their train fare or gas for the car. This is the only time their daughter, Anne, ever remembers them going on a vacation like this.
The roundtrip cost of a Monarch Cruise per person to Bermuda varied from 5 days for $67 ($1,343 in today’s dollars) to 14 days for $130 ($2,608 in today’s dollars). This included a room with a private bath on board ship we well as meals and activities. It also included accommodations and meals at a Bermuda hotel.
The Merrick’s received a salary, room and board teaching at Staten Island Academy. The average salary for a teacher in 1939 was between $2,000-4,000 – but since they received room and board at the school their cash salary was probably quite a bit less. The cost of this trip would have been a lot of money for them, and they must have saved up for a long time…it’s also possible the trip was a gift given to them by the school or one of the school’s wealthy families.
Marion’s sister, Savina, joined them on the cruise. Anne Merrick Vosti thinks she and her brother, Hap, probably stayed with their Grandmother, Bina (Harold was 6 and Anne was 3). She was too young to remember her parents describing any details of the trip, but there are a few pictures of this once in a lifetime adventure.
Marion and Harold’s took this trip just before the start of World War II. In November of 1939, the Monarch of Bermuda was commissioned as a troop ship for World War II. The ship was decommissioned in 1947 and sent to the UK to be retrofitted to return to her New York to Bermuda passenger service. In May of 1947, the ship caught on fire white being refitted and although she was eventually repaired, the Monarch never served as a New York to Bermuda passenger ship again. So Harold and Marion were among the last to travel to Bermuda aboard this beautiful ship.
Sources:
1930’s Monarch of Bermuda Cruise ~ New York City Departure & Arrival at Hamilton Bermuda; Ken Butz; Youtube; 2021
RMS Monarch of Bermuda 1931; Ocean Liner Museum UK
Handbook of Labro Statistics – 1941 Edition; United States Department of Labor; Government Printing Office; Washington DC; 1942