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Journal of school teacher Mary Bess Cropper and her experiences abroad. The journal reflects on an educated woman's view of the culture and politics of 1930s Europe from a Kentuckian perspective.

If this diary were to be a complete story of all the plans, dreams, aspirations, disappointments and last minute dashes that have gone into this trip, it should have been begun three years earlier than it is being begun and ieven if it were a record of the trip from the moment of starting, it should have been begun two days ago. But in the rush of leaving, there was no time for a diary.

About eight of us went by taxi to the Red Ox. It was rather crowded and we sat at tables with students. They were all in Nazi uniforms, wearing the Swastika arm bands. We enjoyed talking to them and although they pretended not to understand English very well, I really think theirs was about as good as ours. They sang and we insisted that they continue singing but they seemed to prefer talking. Everybody ordered beer but I can't get enthusiastic about Heidelberg beer. The guest book was passed around and we saw one or two names we recognized. The majority of the names were American. On the walls and low ceiling of the room, names from everywhere were written.

The party was doing very well but it seemed time to pass on to another tavern so we went to the one next door but it was not nearly so interesting as the first one chiefly perhaps because there was no music. One special feature seemed to be the signs hanging from the ceiling. These had been taken by the students from the business firms in Heidelberg. Jane was quite charmed with a blond young Nazi who had talked to her in both taverns and was so loath to leave that Mr. Graham-Jones picked her up and carried her bodily from the room, she protesting violently. She mourned all the way back about leaving "her Fritz." So we had our glimpse of Heidelberg night life which was interesting for an evening but might become monotonous eventually.

Then we went into that hallowed of hallowed art rooms, the Sistine Chapel, so associated with the great Master, Michael Angelo. It is rather narrow room, not very large and contains no furniture except a few benches at the back and sides. We sat down to see the great works on the walls and ceiling while the guide explained the details to us. This Chapel is called Sistine because it was built by Sextus IV. It is used for the Conclave, (election of a pope) and for the coronation of a new pope. During the invasion of Napoleon, his men used it as a kitchen and so the walls are dark and stained. Michael Angelo painted the ceiling at forty-seven years of age. He had been urged to do this by the pope and three times had refused. He spent seven years doing this work. There are pictures of many Biblical subjects, rather difficult to follow without time to figure them out. We spent most of our time looking at that magnificient picture, the "Last Judgment" which covers the entire end of the Chapel and which was painted when the artist was seventy-two. It represents Christ as the judge of humanity and shows Him angry, an uncommon representation. There are two hundred other figures in the picture, Apostles, saints, and the wicked. In the upper part are heaven and paradise, in the lower, hell and purgatory. The river Styx flows through the midst and a trumpeter awakes the dead. The boatman is ferrying humanity from purgatory to hell. A Cardinal, who did not like Michael Angelo complained to the pope that he did not like the picture. This complaint was reported to the artist who put the Cardinal in the picture. Then he went to the pope again saying he did not like the place he had been put and asking the pope to have him taken out.

"Where are you?" asked the pope.

"In hell," replied the Cardinal.

"Well," answered the pope, "I cannot take you out of hell."

And there the Cardinal remains with a serpent coiled around him.

Mary Bess Cropper was born February 9, 1903 to Woodford Lee and Anna "Bird" Cropper in Bullittsville, Kentucky. Miss Cropper spent her life teaching first in Breathitt County, Kentucky, then two Boone County high schools, before moving to Mankato, Wisconsin where she taught Library Science at Mankato Teacher's College for 20 years. She died on October 15, 1970 at her sister-in-law's home in Boone County.