The REO

Getting a new car is a big event for anyone. Much more if it is the first one after horses and buggies and wagons. My parents got the Reo sometime before I was 5 years old. While we still lived on the homestead where I was born. And where Ethel was born; a new sister and our first car. I remember two things during that time, but these biggies are not them.

One memory included the car, however. Riding in it. But the car is only the vehicle of the memory. The real thing was the move from one home to the other. I didn't remember any of the packing up. All the work of taking one home apart and loading the furniture in the wagons.

Now as I sit in my "rocking chair" almost 90 years later, I know from my little mamma's later 'movings' how much was going on in that little homestead. Dishes were wrapped separately and packed into boxes or tubs. Breaking one was a loss that would be felt and extreme care went into moving.

But self-centered little me, all that preparation, all the hubbub and 'torn up' house was not my worry. Maybe I didn't realize what was going on. Mamma was always working anyhow. Not much new. At any rate, that part is all blank.

But the trip to the new home. That is the picture that I wish I could draw. It is clear in my mind. The family, parents and two little girls, me the oldest, in the Reo. Coming around the bend where the narrow road runs between the hill and the pond before turning west and winding up to the new home. I see the house clearly. And still feel the anticipation. The slow motion of arriving.

Maybe, just maybe, this is a separate memory picture. We are in the house. 'Auntie' Fancher is packing her dishes into boxes. I remember her beautiful smile. At me. Bashful, bratty me! She didn't have any children and loved us.

Later I learned via my little pitchers ¹ ears that she was "poorly' and had dropsy, and for that reason they had to sell their homestead and move to St. Francis. And that she soon died there. But none of that sadness is in the face in my mind-picture. When that 'Some-day' comes, I want to tell her about my beautiful memory-picture. Then, in that time, my story will not be such a show-and-tell quality tale. And that lovely smile will look just like I remember.

Right now I am wondering if that was the actual moving day. It could have been a pre-moving visit. Maybe when the sale transaction was going on. Maybe when we looked at the house before buying. Anyhow, the picture is mine.

The Reo

Alice Crabtree, Bennie Wiley, Margaret Stafford, Ethel Crabtree, Esther Stafford
sitting on the running board of Frank Crabtree's 1910 REO -
Picture taken in 1919

-- Alice (Crabtree) Gregory

¹ My mamma always said that little pitchers have big ears.