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Helen Hithersay was a university instructor of classical & modern dance as well as owner of her own studio in San Diego, California. She came to the United States from her native Poland after World War II as the wife of a former British RAF pilot and the mother of 2 sons.

Cliff McWilliams served in an Army Air Corps combat photo-reconnaissance division during WWII. Most of his subsequent civilian life was with two Wheeling, West Virginia newspapers as city editor, managing editor, and sports editor. He married his high-school sweetheart and was the father of 2 sons and 2 daughters.

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P.O. Box 9039

South Charleston, WV 25309

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121 E. Adams Street

Paden City, WV 26159

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please contact any of the above.

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from Sole

to Soul

Helen Hithersay

with Cliff McWilliams

Limited Edition

Published by STAR*SHOTS Studio

South Charleston, West Virginia

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from Sole to Soul

Limited Edition

First printing, March, 2002

from Sole to Soul

Helen Hithersay with Cliff McWilliams

169 pages, illustrated

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PROLOGUE

Ever take a walk around the block just to see if those scattered and shattered thoughts that flit through your head so fast you can't pin them down would in someway re-group from nebulous uncertainties into concrete thoughts? Gain a perspective? Resolve into sharp focus?

Helen Hithersay did. She walked around the block, still had uncertainties, walked again, and again, and the last time just kept on walking . . . from her home and business in San Diego, California 2,653 miles to Washington, DC.

Alone.

A life that had been extremely rewarding, smoothing all the heartaches, terrors, and hardships of early years, was reaching a standstill and starting to slip away.

Perhaps it has happened to you, to all of us. The hours are not so bad when work or responsibilities call us, demand our time and -- best of all -- our undivided attention. But then, at some time early-or-late, old or comparatively young, at a retirement age or even after a few years or even months on-the-job, many are apt to hustle off to the office or mine or factory -- no matter what it may be -- simply as 8 hours of blessed surcease from our evolving lives and everyday pressures.

Perhaps it's your wife or husband who has grown away from you? Bills piling up faster than you can

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chop them down? Sickness? Revolt in your heart against the system? Just plain boredom?

Helen Hithersay solved her problem by walking. She and the road were 'married' for 3 months. Plod, plod, plod. Mountains, deserts, plains, cities, farmland, and forests. Boots and pack. Blazing sun and freezing mountain winds. 5,280 feet-to-the-mile, one sole after another.

She made profound discoveries, so profound she realized she had known them all along … but had forgotten.

First, God -- on a California mountain amidst a hailstorm. Then dangers -- from en eyeball confrontation with a rattlesnake on top of her sleeping bag to poison ivy to a carpet of caterpillars to just plain dogs. And people -- the real people, what makes them 'tick' and how they are molded from poverty and riches and terrain and geography, which states have kind people, which ones brusque, the compassionate states, the ones which pay lip service to charity when they can afford it, the smilers, the frowners.

She gained a host of companions -- animate and inanimate -- jackrabbits, rivers, cows, telephone poles, and bagworms.

But most of all, she found herself . . . and the way to pick up the thread of a new life while still treasuring the well-worn tapestry of her past.

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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Digest of Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 1 - Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 2 - California . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 3 - Companions of the Road (animate) . . . . 35

Chapter 4 - Companions of the Road (inanimate) . . 43

Chapter 5 - Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Chapter 6 - Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 7 - Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 8 - Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 9 - Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 10 - Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 11 - Indiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Chapter 12 - Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Chapter 13 - Appalachia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Chapter 14 - Washington, DC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Foreword ● 1

Foreword

The following appeared in the The Wheeling Intelligencer newspaper on August 23, 1973:

"Woman Walks - But She Won't Talk !"

by Cliff McWilliams

Sports Editor of the Intelligencer

"Excuse me, Ma'am, may I speak with you a moment?"

"Certainly," she smiled, and then her face clouded. "But definitely NOT if you're a reporter … … and you are, aren't you?"

I stammered, admitted my horrible background, and then tried my best psychological gimmicks for reluctant, newspaper-shy objects.

"Please," I said, alternately flashing an ingratiating smile and a disconsolate droop of my head, "I'll admit I work for a newspaper and will respect your right to privacy; won't use your name (unless you let it slip); and won't break out the old camera (unless I can get someone else to do it); and will just talk to you like a good old' human being."

She was weakening, I could see. I pressed the advantage. "But my curiosity is just boiling over. Could you just tell me what you're doing?"

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The smile reappeared. And I felt a little guilty because I knew this was going to be too good to keep all to myself and I was already figuring how to write it. But I listened. The old smile-and-droop "trick" had worked again.

"Well, all right", she said. "I'm walking across the country."

I prodded, "Where are you from? This road (Ohio Route 250 near Harrisville) isn't really on the beaten path. What are you doing here?"

"I started from San Francisco some three-and-a-half months ago and was going to New York. But I walked down to Canton to see my son earlier this week and decided I'd just keep on going this way and end up in Washington, D.C."

"But why?" I wondered. "Why would a lone woman undertake such a task?"

"Now, now," she replied, "you're being a newspaperman again. I can only tell you that it's done wonders for me. I've lost about 15 pounds, feel absolutely wonderful, have never been sick a single moment the past three-and-a-half months, and would recommend it to anyone. It not only cures your physical ailments but psychological ones as well. The peace you gain just walking through the country is wonderful therapy."

She glanced at my belt to where my chest had fallen in recent years. "I could get rid of 'that' for you in about 2 days. Would you like to walk a ways with me?"

I declined that with great haste.

Foreword ● 3

"How far do you walk a day?"

"Oh," she said, "maybe 30-or-40 miles or even more. Today I'm going to take it easy. I stayed all night in Cadiz and am only going to walk to Wheeling today."

I couldn't help but note her deeper-than-deep tan, and remarked about it. "That's from the desert", she said. "It was really hot out there. A lot of people must have thought I looked miserable, but I wasn't actually. People in the West -- in the desert -- would stop and offer me rides even though I always walk facing traffic to show them I'm not hitchhiking. But even so, they'd top and ask if they could help. Not so many stop in the East. Maybe they're afraid of me."

She looked trim and fit, but at about 100 pounds I couldn't see how anyone would be afraid of her. "But haven't you had any troubles," I persisted. "a lone woman crossing the entire country on foot?"

"No," she smiled. "It's a wonderful country. The people are so great. Even the newspaper reporters are nice. I had trouble only twice. Once with a teensy-weensy dog in Illinois and another time with a rattlesnake in Utah. I found it curled up on my sleeping bag in my tent when I awoke."

"You mean that little knapsack you have on your back carries a sleeping bag and tent in addition to all your necessities?"

"Oh no," she replied, "after lugging that big tent through the desert, I decided just to do what motorists do and sleep in rooms or motels along the way. I mailed the tent to my sister in Chicago."

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"But what about rain?"

"I just walk right through it. I like the sound my shoes make when they get soaked and squish-squish-squish."

She was still smiling and pleasant, but the 'interview' came to a sudden halt. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I really must be getting on. I'd talk to you some more if you want, but you'd have to walk along with me. Maybe even to Wheeling where you say you work, huh?"

She laughed and gaily waved goodbye and turned her back as she strode down the highway.

I settled back in the car cushions, turned on the key, and rode away. "Oh well," I mused, "I loused that one up. No name, no reason for walking, no background, nothing much at all. The old smile-and-droop 'trick' let me down for the first time."

"I wonder why-in-the-world she doesn't like reporters?"

Foreword ● 5

A few days later this letter was received by The Wheeling Intelligencer newspaper :

Helen Hithersay

{address deleted}

Columbus, Ohio 43204

Sep. 27, 73

Mr. Cliff McWilliams

The Intelligencer

Wheeling, West Virginia

Dear Mr. McWilliams:

Upon finding myself in your paper on Aug. 23, a woman who "Walks But Won't Talk", my first reaction was to walk straight up to your door and give you a good punch in the nose (to put it mildly). I guess you know why. After reading the article, though, I felt disarmed by your wit and style, and the way you handled the matter. So, I've decided to leave Wheeling … grinning.

Many days passed since. I reached Washington DC as planned and, my journey completed, I'm settled now -- hibernating through winter -- at Columbus, Ohio. Not for long. For you know how it is with those who once catch the fever of the road, it grips them, and they have to move again. Like gypsies.

In the meantime I have time to think and remember. As I wrote to my son, "If my shaggy old boots could only talk, what a story they could tell!" To which he answered, "then why don't you give a voice to someone who can tell it?" And that's why this letter.

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If you are interested in listening to the "story of my boots" -- NOT for publicity sake but for the public (as sort of my "thank you" to all the folks who helped me on the road) -- then maybe we could get together.

Please let me know if the subject interests you.

Sincerely,

Helen Hithersay

And that letter led to many future conversations and correspondences that ultimately produced the material that follows.

Although he had written thousands of articles and columns and interviewed as many famous personalities during his 30-years with Ogden Newspapers Inc., it was this chance encounter that inspired Cliff McWilliams to finally write a book, a latent dream that most writers entertain throughout their careers.

He passed away on April 13, 1988 with his book on Helen's incredible trek finished but unpublished. His original manuscript has recently been discovered, and it was re-edited and produced here.

Despite letters to her last-known addresses, today's status and whereabouts of Helen Hithersay are unknown.

-- Mark McWilliams, February 2002

Digest of Chapters ● 7

DIGEST of CHAPTERS

Chapter 1 - Reflections

She was sleeping, just off the road by the sagebrush, in a furnace-hot Utah desert and woke with a dread premonition of horrible danger. There -- less than a foot from her eyes -- was the head of a huge rattlesnake. Frozen by fear, she stared back, hypnotized. For 5 … 10 … 15 minutes or more. Flashes of her life swept past. Finally it crawled off the sleeping bag and slithered away. No one witnessed her subsequent hysterical weeping as she was miles from civilization.

Chapter 2 - California

She started her trip with 4 weekends of trial hikes, each one getting closer to the jumping-off pint at Pollack Pines. There was little fanfare other than a newspaper story about her closing the dance studio. And she told no one -- other than a few close friends -- what she was planning to do. Few noticed her walking as Californians have learned to pay little attention to anyone. The most rewarding moment of her walk occurred shortly thereafter when she "shook hands" with God on a mountaintop in a hailstorm. The beauty of the hike through western California was tarnished for her by the encroaching commercialism, particularly around Lake Tahoe.