I had heard of Dr. Joseph Armstrong and his wife Mary since childhood from my father, who had taken the famous ‘Browning Course’ from the colorful professor, who had made it his life’s work to collect everything important from the English Poet and playwright, and bring it to the small Baptist university in a small central Texas town.
I knew my grandfather Earl had been involved in helping the Armstrongs get a library building constructed to house the collection of the Browning artifacts on the Baylor campus.
After I graduated from high school in Houston in the Spring of 1961, I drove up to Waco to finalize my arrangements to start in the fall as a freshman.
At the request of my grandfather, I paid a call to Dr. Armstrong’s widow, Mary, who had an office in the Browning Library. She was almost 80, and she received me with a big sparkle in her eyes, especially when I told her I was going to work that summer as an assistant tour guide on a 65-day grand European tour.
She recounted how she and her late husband had organized, sold, and conducted 34 Grand Tours to Europe and the Middle East in the early 1900s when travel there was somewhat primitive. She explained that all the proceeds went to their fund to purchase memorabilia, manuscripts, and other items which had belonged to the famous poet and his wife, Elizabeth Barrett.
I was fascinated by the stories of her many adventures, and she was fascinated that a young 17-year-old would be interested in her, her life, and her achievements. We made a date for that fall to see each other again, when I would be in Waco to start school. And I followed through.
Mrs. Armstrong, seeing how much I loved travel, asked me gingerly that September if I would consider coming over to her modest bungalow to help her organize her many storage boxes from her years of international travel. She explained that she was too old to easily move them about. I readily accepted, and I was eager to tell her of my summer adventures, for which she had been nice enough to supply me with a lot of tips before I had left.
The Saturdays I spent with her were the opportunity of a lifetime. As we opened each crumbling box and she sorted through the yellowing photos, itinerary sheets, traveler lists, and all the other memories, I realized the magnitude of what she and Dr. Armstrong had accomplished.
What I remember most from those Saturdays are the photos: the elegantly clad men and women with long dresses and big floppy hats astride mammoth camels, with the pyramids, the Egyptian desert, and the Sphinx in the background; group scenes of jauntily-clad travelers on the decks of transatlantic steamships at sea; and shots of native guides clad in turbans and flowing robes. I was determined to see all of this myself firsthand one day. And, after visiting over 70 countries, I have, thanks in large part to Mrs. Armstrong, who lighted my candle.
Armstrong Tours of Distinction were not cheap and their traveler lists came to include people from all over the United States, as word of their scholarly journeys spread. I pondered how, while keeping to a rigorous study, research, and teaching schedule, this couple had managed to pull together and successfully execute these long and meticulously managed guided tours, especially when all arrangements had to be made via mail or telegram!
Much later I realized how thrilled Mrs. Armstrong must have been that a young student validated and was inspired many decades later by her monumental achievements.
In that musty garage we had a pretty good mutual admiration society going!
After several weekends we got things in order in her travel files, and by this time I was swept up in being a freshman at Baylor. My continuing studies took me to Austin, Geneva, and Munich, and then suddenly I was engulfed up in my career. ‘Miss Mary’ and I lost track.
In 1971 I was traveling again in Europe when I got a long-distance call from my family, who had been contacted by Max Armstrong, Mary Armstrong’s son, with whom she had lived her later years in Pennsylvania. Mary Armstrong at age 89 had died. It had been ten years since we had been in touch.
In going through his mother’s affairs, Max noticed a sealed envelope propped up on his mom’s desk. He opened it, and found in her handwriting the list of those she had chosen to be the pallbearers at her funeral.
My name was on that list.
Of all the people she had known and loved in her life, my brief time with her had been more special to her than I had realized.
She had shared with me the light from her candle, and by telling you this story, dear reader, I am sharing with you the light from mine.
