In today’s dollars, what would a coach class ticket have cost in 1961? Air travel was a rare luxury for the upper class in those days, not the cattle car budget travel it is today. I’d guess that a ticket Honolulu to Seattle would cost about $5,000 in 2009 dollars.
My grandparents traveled from NY to Europe around the same time on a vacation trip and went by ship because they couldn’t afford air fare.
Where would an 18 year old have found that type of money?
Probably the same place her son found tuition for Columbia and Harvard a few years later.
Zbigniew Brzezinski?
“Air travel was a rare luxury for the upper class in those days,”
You are correct about that. I think 1958 was the first year that more crossed the Atlantic by air than by ship. It was not a normal thing yet to jump a plane. And most airlines were not solely jet yet.
It's difficult to imagine how her parents would have found the money, either. They had just relocated to Hawaii a year before, one of the highest cost-of-living states in the Union, with all the expenses a move like that entails. Madelyn, the main breadwinner, had no college degree, and although she apparently had some years of experience in escrow, she wouldn't be promoted to VP of Bank of Hawaii until years later. The father was simply a furniture salesman.
So they were maintaining a residence in Hawaii, and also supporting a daughter and grandchild in Seattle? And paying out-of-state tuition, to boot?
Why?
It might have seemed like a lot of money compared to normal salaries, but I crossed the Atlantic ocean and returned for $300. in 1964 - and that was not a special price, but a normal coach fare. And I was not in the rare "upper class".