The Cars

The first car I remember our family driving was a Grey 1948 Ford Sedan. It had cloth seats and the back doors opened from the front.

The next was a 1950 Nash Ambassador. We thought it looked like an upside down bathtub. It was painted a Midnight blue, the paint was oxidizing so it looked multicolored. The seats folded down so you could make what seemed like a very large bed. There were no seat belts in those days and we would stand up in the back seat, or on the floor of the back seat and hang our arms over the back of the front seat. Leah always got to ride in the front seat between Daddy and Mamma because she was the oldest. When she wasn’t along, Leone and I would fight about who got to sit in front.

Then we had a 1951 or 52 Kaiser. Daddy bought it from Vic Stasser, who was the dealer in Haigler for Kaisers, Frazers and Henry J’s. One icy day, we were attempting to get up the hill on the old highway 27 and were slipping and sliding when Frank Chartier came over the hill and hit us. Luckily, both cars were creeping along so no one was hurt, but the car was totaled. We got another Kaiser instead of fixing the wrecked one. About this time, my grandparents had a 1950 Frazer and I believe my uncle Lloyd Crabtree was driving one too. My aunt floy’s family were driving a green 1949 chevy coup, and my aunt Ethel Rath and her husband were driving an old grey 1948 dodge pickup.

Our baby sister, Eunice, was born while we had the Kaiser and she rode on mamma's or Leah's lap in the front seat. Leone always sat behind mamma and I sat behind daddy and we made Dick sit in the middle. If we mis-behaved, daddy would reach around and thump us on the head. We were such good kids, that this rarely happened. (Yeah, right!! haha)

After that, we had a 1953 Nash Rambler. We drove this car for quite some time, because it is the one I learned to drive in. Of course, in those days, we learned to drive when we were pretty young. I actually got my driver's licence when I was 14 years old.

It was the year I was in the seventh grade at East 10 grade school. I remember this because I was driving this car a few days before we had school pictures taken. Dick and I were taking the car along the fence of our east pasture to go get the cows to bring them in for milking one evening and I got the bright idea that I wanted to drive really fast, so I took off across the field south of our barn and stepped on it!! Dick was in the back seat and when I decided it was time to slow down I misjudged the strength of the brakes and pushed too hard causing him to fly into the dashboard with his face. Those flip down front seats didn’t slow down his projected body one bit! As a result, he had his picture taken that year with a black eye from a broken cheekbone.

The next car was a white 1960 Chevrolet Biscayne sedan. My dad drove that car for over 200,000 miles with only minor repairs.

I remember Don Smith drove a green two tone Plymouth and Paul and Hanna Zuege drove the first 1957 Chevy I had ever seen. I thought that was the prettiest car ever made!

Being the oldest in our family, Leah was the first to have a car of her own. It was a red 1953 Ford Fairlane. Daddy helped her pick it out and she made payments on it until it was paid for and paid the insurance premium. Dick was the next to get his own car. We were in college by that time and he got a yellow 1958 Ford Fairlane convertible with a white rag top and glass pipes.

The coolest car that I remember was owned by Norman Beeson: a 1949 red and white Ford Crown Vic convertible with glass pack pipes. There was nothing that sounded better than those glass packs! You just weren’t cool if you didn’t have them on your car!