Theodore Xavier Lareau

If his sister was the family historian, Ted has to be classed as the family adventurer for this branch of the family. It was only after his retirement that he became a world traveler in earnest. The following is from a 1965 article in the Michigan State Journal:

Come January, Theodore X. Lareau ... packs his bags and takes off on a three to four month trip to distant parts of the world. He uses a world globe, National Geographic, and Venture magazines as his Baedekers. Usually he just decides what direction he will go ... New York, New Orleans, or Los Angeles. After he reaches therese, he might decide to take a freighter, passenger steamship, or airliner for the trans-ocean voyage.

"I like to make my travel plans after I'm on my way. It costs more sometimes when you travel this way," he said, "but you have control over your own destinies. To me, it's more interesting." There are times when he joins a conducted tour in some particular foreign city. He also has gone on five safaris into Kenya, Mozambique, and other parts of Africa. Lareau said that the only hunting he has done has been with his camera.

For years, he and his wife traveled on vacation all over the United States, Mexico, and other parts of Latin America. Their last trip together was when they drove to New Orleans and took a United Fruit Lines freighter to Central America. After her death, he resumed his travels in 1962, when he boarded a Yugoslavian freighter in New York, and went to Tangiers, Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia, Libya, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal.

The following year, Lareau drove his car to Panama through Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. His 1964 trip was aboard a Japanese freighter that took him to Okinawa, Formosa, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. In 1965, he took a plane to Cairo, then traveled by camel, bus, plane, and train throughout Egypt, Greece, Sudan, Ethiopia, France, Germany and England.

At the time the article was written, he was planning to book passage on a freighter out of New York, with tentative plans to return to Egypt, but this time to go on to Saudi Arabia, Syria and the Holy Land.

He had a well-known disregard for American hotels when traveling. "You might as well stay at home if you travel that way," he has said, "I like to live with and get to know the natives of any country I visit, really talk to them, and get to know their country as they see it. It's really quite easy for a man traveling alone to find an interesting place to stay, and in most countries, many people are anxious to meet Americans and learn something about our country and its people."