Aloha Wanderwell

[Shaun @ Tru6]

I'm subscribed to a Belle Epoque to Art Deco FB forum (fascinating periods in art, science and culture) and someone had posted a Happy Birthday to Aloha Wanderwell. What an amazing woman, do people like this even exist anymore?

From the post about her.

Born Idris Galcia Welsh in Manitoba, Canada in 1906, she took the name of "Aloha Wanderwell" in the early 1920's, after meeting the explorer Walter Wanderwell. Responding to an ad that Mr. Wanderwell had put in papers in 1922 - searching for “Brains, Beauty & Breeches – World Tour Offer For Lucky Young Woman…Wanted to join an expedition!" - the 16-year old, 6-foot tall young woman met up with the expedition in Paris, and for the next five years, 1922 through 1927, Aloha became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, in a specially made and armoured Ford Model T, serving as driver, translator (she spoke 11 languages!!), and film maker documenting the expedition.

The trek wound its way through 80 countries, covering a total of 380,000 miles (!!); they used kerosene for gasoline, crushed bananas for grease in the differential, and elephant fat for oil (it was a different time). It's believed that funding for their expeditions came from Henry Ford, Standard Oil, and other corporations of the time, as well as giving paid talks and showing the films of their travels.


After becoming an American citizen, the young Aloha and Walter married one another in 1925, and from 1926 to 1928, the two of them traveled throughout Africa - one of Aloha's biographers found evidence that she cut her hair at one point, and joined (and fought with) the French Foreign Legion in the Rif War in Algeria in the early 1920's. While driving through China, the expedition was caught by bandits, and only released when Aloha showed them the proper way to load and fire their machine guns!


Her husband Walter Wanderwell was shot and killed in 1932 by unknown assailants, on his boat while it was moored in Long Beach harbor (California). Aloha carried on by herself, and formed an expedition to Brazil - learning to fly in the process - and participating in the search for the lost Percy Fawcett Expedition, but she was unsuccessful in finding them.


Aloha Wanderwell married once more, and then settled down in the mid 1930's, giving talks and exhibiting the many films of her travels. All of her travel films survive, and are at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian.
Ms. Wanderwell died June 4, 1996, in Newport Beach, CA at age 89.








One of many videos about her