I’ve written before about my great-great-grandmother’s sister, Carrie Paak Waruf, and her husband Henry Waruf: Who Was Hank Waruf, Kalamazoo Gunsmith, Tennyson’s Words for Henry Waruf’s Funeral, and All the Peek Girls (note that Paak can be spelled Peek, Paake, etc.).
The other day I received one of those little Ancesty leaves on Carrie’s profile. The leaf led me to a Florida Passenger List for 1931. It shows that Carrie and “Harry” Waruf traveled on the S. S. North Land from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, Florida. They arrived on February 15, 1931.
I started thinking about this trip. Undoubtedly this means that they vacationed in Cuba, to get away from the Michigan winter. Beginning in the late 1920s (or earlier), the twenty-seven-year-old 3,282-ton North Land, owned by Eastern Steamship Corporation, ran between Key West and Havana in the winter (and Boston and Yarmouth NS by summer). The North Land was a steamship and just short (in overall size) of the new luxury cruise ship that had recently become available (over 3,700 tons) that shipped out of Miami.
I wonder how long they vacationed in Cuba, where they stayed, and what they did there.
In 1930 the brand new Hotel Nacional de Cuba was built, so it’s very likely that they stayed there.
Poolside . . . . Trying to imagine Carrie and Henry/Hank/Harry by the pool with rum drinks.
This is what the Paseo de Prado looked like in the Warufs’ time:
Did Henry Waruf bring back boxes of cigars when they sailed into the Port at Key West?
This photo is how they would have seen Key West in those days. Did they pay a duty on the cigars? Was there a limit on how many he could bring home? Remember that this was barely a year after the Stock Market Crash. Cigar factories were hurting in Cuba, just as companies and workers were hurting everywhere.
Did Henry and Carrie sneak back rum? It was still Prohibition when the Warufs traveled to Cuba!
It’s hard to imagine what an exciting place Cuba must have been for a couple from Kalamazoo in 1931.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Oh, it’s so exciting when something like this turns up! I love your imagination and the way you work so hard to find what might have happened. Great post!
Jackie, it just fell into my hands. I love that. No effort at all, but then of course I wanted to research a trip to Cuba in those days!!
That IS exciting!! You found the affluent part of our family and expressed it so well. Mom Janet
I’m glad you liked it, Mom! I was so lucky that this hint came up and Ancestry makes it so easy to click right through to the document. I started thinking about early 1931 being just past a year after the Great Depression began. WOW, what a trip in those days!!! Imagine what all the other relatives must have thought!
This is a lot of fun — fact and speculation. Travel to Cuba during not only Prohibition but also the Great Depression. Wow!
Yes, the only way to properly handle family history and genealogy, to my way of thinking, is to add in the speculation ;). That’s what makes it fun because it’s filling in all those pesky blanks!
Have you been able to find pictures of their trip?
No, but I am always hopeful. I keep some of my photos unexplored because there are so many and I can never catch up and then there is always something fun to discover later on!
Having spent some time in Key West and stared out to try and see Cuba, I really enjoyed this post, especially that picture of old Key West. Perhaps fairly soon we will again have ships ferrying tourists to Cuba for cigars and who knows what else!
Our generation has been kept from Cuba for so much of our lives. When I was in school many of the Spanish teachers in the Kalamazoo area were Cuban exiles. Hah, maybe we will have that again soon! Hard to see what became of that beautiful place. I hope it can bloom again.
My brother-in-law had visited Cuba on humanitarian missions. It sounds like a fascinating place.
How interesting. He must have some stories about his time there!
[…] I’ve written before about my great-great-grandmother’s sister, Carrie Paak Waruf, and her husband Henry Waruf: Who Was Hank Waruf, Kalamazoo Gunsmith, Tennyson’s Words for Henry Waruf’s Funeral, and All the Peek Girls (note that Paak can be spelled Peek, Paake, etc.). And when they traveled to Cuba. […]