In 1949, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Meyer drove in a CJ-2A from the Panama Canal to Decatur, Illinois. The article below provide the only records I could find related to their trip. This first article summarizes the adventure and shows a great photo of “DOPEY”. It was published in the Decatur Review, June 16, 1949:

This second article is a pictorial of the trip that was published June 18, 1949, in Bloomington, Illinois’ “The Pantagraph”:

This is a different summary of the trip, but contains no photos. It was published in the Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, Louisiana) on May 13, 1949:

This last article was published June 17, 1949, in the Herald and Review out of Decatur, Illinois:

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On December 06, 1949, New York Artist and former Gallery owner Elenore Lust drove her WWII jeep  into Capetown, completing a 13,000 mile trek from France to South Africa. Their trek took them across ten countries. During one long stretch in the Sahara Desert she and her husband Paul Koston, who didn’t know how to drive, had to spread wire mesh on the sand, drive atop it, then roll it up, move it to the front of the jeep, then drive forward again, a process they repeated many times.

Unfortunately, I could not locate a photo of her and her jeep, but I was able to find a photo and an obit, which shared that after teaching art in South Africa, she returned to the US and began teaching art in Pennsylvania up until her death.

This article from the December 07, 1949, issue of New York’s Daily News provides some details about the trip.

Here’s the only photo of Elenore I could find. It was printed in the June 08, 1988, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Her obituary was published in the April 24, 1997, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Maynard Roberts pictures on the left in San Paulo, Brazil, from the January 23, 1950, issue of the Pomona Progress Bulletin.

In 1948, 34 year-old Maynard Roberts, from La Verne, California, traveled south into Mexico and spent the next 18 months exploring Central and South American. He wrote a series of articles for the Pomona Progress Bulletin detailing his trip. He’d hoped to write a book, but I have been unable to locate one. If he didn’t, it’s too bad, because I think he was a very good writer.

His skill is evident early on when he wrote a phrase that caught my attention, “About seven years ago I was keeping company with my last twenty-dollar bill …” His attention to details and telling a few small stories make his tale worth reading. It’s unfortunate that these articles only share snippets, for it seems he’s got a good story to tell and the skill to tell it.

His idea to travel germinated prior to WWII. He was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1914. As a child, his parents moved to California, Near the start of WWII he got the idea to travel to South America, so he began saving money. During WWII he was a draftsman, perhaps a skill learned during his college days at Chaffee college? Finally, by 1948, he saved up enough money to buy a jeep and afford to travel.

Part one of his adventure appeared in the January 09, 1950, issue of the Ponoma Progress Bulleting, split into two sections.

Part II: This is the second installment of Maynard’s adventure. It appeared in the January 16, 1950, issue of the Pomona Progress Bulletin.

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