42 Our Vacation Went Up In Smoke

 

My Wallis Family – Parents and Siblings

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 42 – October 14, 2025

Prompt: Fire

When I was growing up, our family vacations always included two things: miniature golf and banana splits. One thing we didn’t expect was a hotel fire.

Ralph, Libby, Storm and Dave playing miniature golf. 

In the summer of 1960, my parents and two brothers, Dave and Storm, took a family vacation to the Gulf Coast in a 1960 Chevy station wagon—red with a white top. I was six; my brothers were thirteen and twelve.

Home base was Gulfport, Mississippi. We stayed at the Sea Isles Hotel Court. Our unit had a living room and at least two bedrooms (I probably slept on a roll-away bed in the living room). We were right across the street from the beach.

Storm, Dave, and Libby at the pool. See the Gulf waves breaking in the background. 

Storm, Libby and Dave. I had to wear my leotard as a bathing suit to protect my shoulders from sunburn. 

One of our day trips was to Bellingrath Gardens in Theodore,  Alabama near Mobile.

Another day trip was an excursion to Ship Island aboard the tour boat Pan American. The island is home to Fort Massachusetts, a beautifully preserved brick fort from the Civil War.

A storm was brewing, and after a short time on the island, we heard the captain sounding the horn to return to the boat. The wind was blowing the sand so hard it felt like needles on our skin. On the way back, Dave got to stay up on the open-air top deck “with all the drunks.” The rest of us hunkered down inside, hoping the boat and the beer-scented passengers made it safely to shore.

Pan American boat to Ship Island

Pan American boat returning from Ship Island. 

But that was not to be the most exciting part of the trip.

One afternoon Daddy stayed at the motel to take a nap while Mom and us kids went across the street to the beach. Suddenly, we heard a fire truck and saw it turn into our motel. We gathered our towels and scrambled across the street to see smoke billowing from the rooms on the back side of the complex. Our unit was on the front side—safe from the flames, but heavy with smoke.

Storm ran inside and grabbed my “Cathy Doll,” the Madame Alexander baby doll I’d had since I was a baby. Daddy was beaming with pride when he said, “Look, honey—I got our suitcases out!” Unbeknownst to him, Mom had unpacked them earlier. Everything we’d brought on the trip was ruined with smoke damage, except what we were wearing—which, for Mom and the kids, meant nothing but bathing suits. Daddy was the only one with a shirt and shoes.

Even a jar of Noxzema was covered with soot—inside the jar. Mom sent Daddy to a local store to buy her a “house dress” and shoes so she could go shopping for replacements for the rest of us.

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Closing Reflection

Looking back, the fire might have been the most memorable souvenir of that vacation. We lost our clothes but kept our sense of humor—and my Cathy Doll.

Every family trip has its mishaps, but this one taught me something about the kind of people my parents were. They laughed instead of cried, found dinner in bathing suits and borrowed shoes, and turned disaster into one more family story that still warms me today.

Sometimes “fire” doesn’t just destroy—it forges the memories that last.

A vintage postcard of our vacation home.