On January 1, 1930 the Pantagraph announced that the McGonnigal family would be traveling to Russia, where they intended to live for the next three years. The family included three daughters, Eileen, Gladys and Lenore -- all Trinity High School students. Lawrence McGonnigal was a manager of the McLean County Coal Company, which, with alternative heating sources such as the Oil-O-Matic, was slowly becoming obsolete in McLean County. McGonnigal would be working for the engineering firm of Allen & Garcia of Chicago in Russia. He had been working in coal mining for many years and was a professional engineer. Allen and Garcia was sending a company of 15 engineers, most of whom were accompanied by wives and children, to Kharkov, Ukraine to help the Russians reopen 24 mines. The plan was to create a small colony of the Americans and house them in special housing with modern facilities such as steam heat and running water. The McGonnigal family looked forward to the adventure and the sisters promised to send letters to the Pantagraph.
It was not until the girls reached Kharkov that they sent the promised letter. They described their journey across the Atlantic, which must have been a cold one in January! They visited Paris, which they did not find impressive because of the lack of skyscrapers (!!). They were impressed with the Notre Dame, however, with its many many altars. In Berlin they visited the Kaiser's palace and noted the floors laid with ivory and gold. In Kharkov they were pleased with their apartment building and found the climate much like Illinois. The stores were small and not well stocked, and their eating habits had to adjust to more fowl and fish rather than meat, which was not as available in Russia. They were learning Russian words and found the Russian people welcoming.
After returning from Russia, far ahead of schedule in November, 1931, the stories told were more candid. The Decatur Herald reported the experiences of the McGonnigals. The sisters had lived in Kharkov for only ten months, waiting in lines for rations, cooking over a blowtorch and freezing at night for lack of fuel. Fed up with Russia, they were then sent to a Swiss boarding school for a year. On their return they had their first Christmas tree in two years, for there was no Christmas in Russia. Imagine, no Christmas in October or November either!!
The promised modern apartment was heated to a temperature the Russians found adequate -- 40 degrees. The Americans put up a great fuss and obtained kerosene heaters, but the availability of kerosene was limited to a ration of 2 liters a week, for which the housewife had to queue. In fact, everything was obtained by queueing.
The adventure was interrupted however by the sad and unexpected death of Lucille Ryan McGonnigal from a heart embolism on February 5, 1931. At the time of her death she and her daughters were living in a pensione in Geneva, Switzerland where she had gone for a major operation. The family was not able to return to the States until November of that year when the engineers managed to get all their contracts cancelled. Lucille McGonnigal was then buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Bloomington.
Another article from the Decatur Daily Review included Lenore McGonnigal's reflections on the equality of women in Russia. She admitted that women did have complete equality there, and that the work of women in construction and other work was more highly regarded that the work of housewives. Women who worked outside the home were allowed greater rations of food and other consumer goods than housewives. The recollection made Lenore shudder. Lenore admitted that as a housewife in Russia, one had nothing to do other than stand in line and take care of a tiny apartment. As a temporary resident Lenore had waited in lines for food, cooked it in a tiny apartment and still had ample time to be bored of the monotony of life -- time when a Russian woman would be working outside the home. The life of Russian women was not filled with the entertainments of club life and parties that a housewife in Bloomington would enjoy while her husband labored to support his family.
Of course, even in Russia, the American women expected to have domestic help in those tiny apartments. Russian maids, it was said, would sleep on the stove, but in the American apartments, they slept in the bathtubs. Why four women in a four room apartment would need a maid is truly puzzling, but that was the expectation for a professional's wife in the 1930s.
Even in the midst of the Depression, the families returning from Russia were thankful to be home and enjoy the relative bounty of the United States.