By: Karl Anderson, LeMay Board Member

In the summer of 1929, Martha Beck, of Boston, Massachusetts, packed up her two daughters, Barbara and Marjorie, and two of their friends, Iva Bryant and Else Rommelfanger, and embarked on an epic cross-country road trip in their new Ford Model A touring car. They drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains to Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico.

After stops at the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Yosemite, they drove up the Pacific Coast, visiting Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier, passing through Tacoma and Seattle, and finally taking the ferry to Victoria, BC. The prospect of finding passable roads across Canada seemed too daunting, so they put their car, which they had dubbed "Marco Polo," on a CNR train at Revelstoke and sent it ahead of them back to the east coast.

All along the way, Mrs. Beck and the girls stopped to see the sights and visit old friends and relatives who had moved "out west." Nine years later, Barbara, who had taken a job as secretary to the Dean of Civil Engineering at MIT, married a handsome young PhD candidate from Tacoma named Arthur Anderson. She eventually moved to Tacoma, where Arthur and his brother Thomas founded Concrete Technology Corporation. Succeeding generations of Martha Beck's descendants have grown up hearing the story of this trip and enjoying their own "Romance with the Automobile."

Her grandson Karl Anderson (LeMay Founding Board Member) has played a key role in bringing the LeMay Museum from a dream to reality.