Late one evening we boarded the Lake Farley. The captain assigned to us our cabin and we were underway. It was late July and when we entered the cabin we found that the temperature must have been well over a hundred. It was so hot that the floor was too hot for the cats to walk on and they kept jumping back and forth from one bunk to the other. The dogs we had left on deck.
So we went to the Captain and complained about the heat. He said he was sorry he had nothing better but that the whole boat was at our disposal and we could arrange ourselves wherever we wished. So after looking everything over, we finally decided to sleep on top of the chartroom. We climbed up there with a couple of blankets and settled for the night under the stars. This was not bad but only the sparks from the funnel kept raining down on us most of the time. But we got used to this and stayed that way most of the trip. The captain was American as well as the mate but the crew was of all nationalities, the cook being a Turk. However it did not look as though the trip would last only five days as the boat was very slow. We stopped on our way at Biserta on the African coast and had a day ashore. The day after we left Biserta at lunch time, I smelled smoke, so I told Nelka I would go and investigate. The moment I came out on deck the alarm bells started off and I saw the middle of the ship aflame.
While I went on deck, Nelka had gone to our cabin, and when she entered she also heard the alarm. So picking up the two cats and a life belt, she hurried on deck. I likewise picked up the two dogs and a life belt.
The captain was hollering from the bridge to lower the boats as the ship would blow up because of the oil. In a few minutes one of the boats was already bobbing on the water and the cook in his white cap was in it. However, all who were available were fighting the fire, mostly with sand and finally we got it under control. All was fine, only the fire did some damage in the engine room and for more than a day we drifted while they were making repairs.
Then we resumed our way to Barcelona where we were to unload some of the wheat we were carrying. When we got there the Spanish authorities would not allow us to go ashore for, as we were Russians, they decided that we may be communists. So they even posted a policeman to see that we would not sneak off. This might not have been so bad, but in the unloading a mistake was made. The forward hull was emptied and as a result the ship sank by the stern and got stuck in the mud bottom. It took us a whole week to extricate ourselves and all that time we had to just sit on that boat.
By the time we finally got to Marseille we had been traveling for three weeks.
We settled in Menton where we remained for several years. I worked in a French Real Estate office. We also played at Monte Carlo and were quite proficient. Nelka used to say that this was the only honest and "above board" business.
In the summer of 1927 we received the news that Nelka's Uncle Herbert Wadsworth had died suddenly from a heart attack. Once again Nelka had a severe blow and sorrow and once more she had lost a close person without having seen him. That fall we finally sailed for America with our friends Count and Countess Pushkin. We all settled in Cazenovia where Count Pushkin and I started a furniture carving business which we kept up for about three years, until the start of the depression.
While living on the Riviera our animal family had grown to 8 dogs and 5 cats, all picked up or abandoned. The little crippled Djedda was still with us and the most cherished of our pets. We brought the whole menagerie with us to America.
In 1930 when the depression was well under way, we once again sailed back to France and this time were there for three years—part of the time in the South and part near Paris. My father died at that time and in 1934 we returned to America.