Betsy leaves for Europe on the ocean liner S.S. Columbic, which will take her and her traveling companions, the Wilsons, to Genoa, where she will transfer to Munich. Immediately she becomes homesick and heartsick, for she catches a glimpse of Joe covering the ship’s departure for the newspaper, though they do not cross paths. She will be reminded of Joe constantly on her travels; it is obvious that she is still very much in love with him.

Betsy disguises her sadness as seasickness and spends a day or so in her cabin, in bed, miserable. But soon her instinct for companionship and adventure beckons, and she avails herself of ship events (dinners, dances, strolls on deck) and excursions (Madeira, the Azores, Algiers). Before long she has met Taylor and Rosa, actual ladies’ maids, like the ones she has written about; the ebullient Mr. O’Farrell, who looks like her favorite singer Chauncey Olcott; a great new friend from Toronto named Maida; and the famous author Mrs. Main-Whittaker.

The early 1900s represented a kind of golden age of translatlantic ocean travel. Ocean liners were spacious, loaded with amenities, and could accommodate over 1,000 travelers. Most trips overseas took a little less than a week. By the 1950s, ocean liners became rare due to the rise of air travel, and the now super-popular cruise ship industry was born.

Dinner conversations on the ocean liner range from art to music to a women’s right to vote. Mr. O’Farrell is shocked that sweet Betsy considers herself a suffragette. “We’re having a suffrage parade in Minneapolis this spring,” she says. “I’d be marching if I were there.”

“But you’re not a militant?” O’Farrell responds. Betsy isn’t sure that she would characterize herself such. But she knows that she would never back down when presented with such a challenge as voting rights. “I would be if I had to be,” she declares (p. 73, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1996).

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On the ocean liner as a primary means of transportation, see: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter1/emergence-of-mechanized-transportation-systems/liner-transatlantic-crossing-time/

For an interesting depiction of life on a translatlantic ocean liner in Betsy’s era, see: https://www.ggarchives.com/OceanTravel/TravelGuide/31-WhatToExpectOnYourVoyage.html