My mother learned to drive in 1923 in North Carolina. She was 14 and she learned on a Model T. The Model T had a different transmission from what you see today. Part of shifting gears was done with your feet.
Mother
She was taught by her uncles - her mother's younger brothers Willard and Earle who were 20 and 24 years old.
Willard on left - Earle on right
They wanted to visit their girl friends and neither one wanted the other one to drive. Plus my mom looked old enough to maybe make the girl friends jealous. My mom would sit in the car and read until they were ready to leave.
My dad learned to drive when he was working his way through college. He rode a bicycle down to Colorado Springs from his home town in 1922 He took whatever jobs he could. He applied for all the scholarships (no matter how small) that had not been claimed. He worked at the weather bureau. He had a job stoking the furnace at the girls’ dorm which meant he had a key and could let his date in if they came back late. He learned to drive on one of those jobs. A man who sponsored a semi-pro ball club wanted a car driven around town to advertise the game. Dad applied for the job. The man asked him if he know how to drive a standard shift. Truthfully, he said No – because he had only ridden in a car once. So the man showed him how to shift and had him do it once, and then sent him off. He went out of town and practiced and then came back and drove around to advertise the ball game.
My dad's college picture as a grad student. and member of Delta Epsilon fraternity
My parents met in Baltimore where my mom was attending Goucher College for Women and my dad was an Instructor at the University of Maryland Medical School at a Halloween party that she didn't want to go to and he crashed. They dated - this is a photo of them at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.
They got engaged and my mother graduated from college in 1931
She worked as a life guard the summer of 1931 - here she is with Dad
They got married in 1932. One of her bridesmaids was her sister-in-law Margaret who was the only one of Dad's family that she had met.
Their honeymoon was their first summer vacation road trip. First they drove to Colorado where my mom met her mother and father-in-law for the first time.
My dad, his mother, his sister and his father - her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and father-in-law
The toured Colorado
They had to keep the goats from jumping on top of the car because the top was soft
My dad with the car on Pike's Peak
After the Colorado visit, my parents were driving west. Through the desert area there were a great many arroyos which were almost always dry. Since wood was at a premium (it would be taken for firewood), they just paved the road down one side and up the other side. Before each one was a warning sign that there might be water in the 'dip'. Driving at night when it was cooler, my dad would be lying with his head on mom's lap on a pillow and his feet out the window. Mother had been slowing up for these dips and there was never any water in them so one time she decided not to bother, and of course that time - there was water. Dad woke up to a windshield looking like it was under water and wet feet.
Driving through the desert at night (because it was cooler) there was a truck parked on the east side of the road without lights. Mother met another car going east at the truck. She swerved onto the shoulder but not far enough and the cars hooked fenders. Daddy had his head on a pillow on mother’s lap and his feet out the window. The car rolled and he and the pillow came out of the car on the first roll. Mother had cuts on her scalp and was probably concussed. The people who hit them came back and took her to the doctor in Barstow to get stitched up. She kept saying “I want my Honey I want my Honey.” They said “Don’t bleed on the upholstery.” They dropped her off at the doctor after they stole all her money, $100 in silver dollars. Took all the money in her purse, only money she had left was what was pinned in her bra. They left Daddy with the car to figure out what to do with it. He somehow got himself to the hospital but they wouldn’t give him any information about where she was. He gave his medical fraternity signal.(Phi Beta Pi) which had made him an honorary member.
His fraternity pin
Somebody in the fraternity answered and they got reunited. (What was the signal? He didn’t tell me, it was a secret signal).
They went to Uncle Johnny’s and stayed with him and were eating in a soup kitchen. Mother was taking the food home and putting it into the closet to eat later, and the closet got infested with ants. Uncle Johnny thought that was very funny. Eventually the insurance company settled — they took a train to Detroit and picked up a car which Daddy paid for by postdating checks, because they hadn’t gotten the insurance money yet
In 1933 through 1937, they did most of their trips with help from Conoco Touraides
Put out by Continental Oil Company
Letter in one of the Guides
Each guide had marked maps with destinations -
This one goes from Baltimore to Philadelphia to visit my mother's parents, to NJ to visit my dad's sister to Woods Hole and Bar Harbor
There were city maps in addition to segment maps,
lists of things to see in each location
and lists of Hotels, Resorts, Auto Courts, and House Trailer Camps
In 1937, when my mother was pregnant with me, they went as far north as Toronto
Mother
She was taught by her uncles - her mother's younger brothers Willard and Earle who were 20 and 24 years old.
Willard on left - Earle on right
They wanted to visit their girl friends and neither one wanted the other one to drive. Plus my mom looked old enough to maybe make the girl friends jealous. My mom would sit in the car and read until they were ready to leave.
My dad learned to drive when he was working his way through college. He rode a bicycle down to Colorado Springs from his home town in 1922 He took whatever jobs he could. He applied for all the scholarships (no matter how small) that had not been claimed. He worked at the weather bureau. He had a job stoking the furnace at the girls’ dorm which meant he had a key and could let his date in if they came back late. He learned to drive on one of those jobs. A man who sponsored a semi-pro ball club wanted a car driven around town to advertise the game. Dad applied for the job. The man asked him if he know how to drive a standard shift. Truthfully, he said No – because he had only ridden in a car once. So the man showed him how to shift and had him do it once, and then sent him off. He went out of town and practiced and then came back and drove around to advertise the ball game.
My dad's college picture as a grad student. and member of Delta Epsilon fraternity
My parents met in Baltimore where my mom was attending Goucher College for Women and my dad was an Instructor at the University of Maryland Medical School at a Halloween party that she didn't want to go to and he crashed. They dated - this is a photo of them at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.
They got engaged and my mother graduated from college in 1931
She worked as a life guard the summer of 1931 - here she is with Dad
They got married in 1932. One of her bridesmaids was her sister-in-law Margaret who was the only one of Dad's family that she had met.
Their honeymoon was their first summer vacation road trip. First they drove to Colorado where my mom met her mother and father-in-law for the first time.
My dad, his mother, his sister and his father - her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and father-in-law
The toured Colorado
They had to keep the goats from jumping on top of the car because the top was soft
My dad with the car on Pike's Peak
After the Colorado visit, my parents were driving west. Through the desert area there were a great many arroyos which were almost always dry. Since wood was at a premium (it would be taken for firewood), they just paved the road down one side and up the other side. Before each one was a warning sign that there might be water in the 'dip'. Driving at night when it was cooler, my dad would be lying with his head on mom's lap on a pillow and his feet out the window. Mother had been slowing up for these dips and there was never any water in them so one time she decided not to bother, and of course that time - there was water. Dad woke up to a windshield looking like it was under water and wet feet.
Driving through the desert at night (because it was cooler) there was a truck parked on the east side of the road without lights. Mother met another car going east at the truck. She swerved onto the shoulder but not far enough and the cars hooked fenders. Daddy had his head on a pillow on mother’s lap and his feet out the window. The car rolled and he and the pillow came out of the car on the first roll. Mother had cuts on her scalp and was probably concussed. The people who hit them came back and took her to the doctor in Barstow to get stitched up. She kept saying “I want my Honey I want my Honey.” They said “Don’t bleed on the upholstery.” They dropped her off at the doctor after they stole all her money, $100 in silver dollars. Took all the money in her purse, only money she had left was what was pinned in her bra. They left Daddy with the car to figure out what to do with it. He somehow got himself to the hospital but they wouldn’t give him any information about where she was. He gave his medical fraternity signal.(Phi Beta Pi) which had made him an honorary member.
His fraternity pin
Somebody in the fraternity answered and they got reunited. (What was the signal? He didn’t tell me, it was a secret signal).
They went to Uncle Johnny’s and stayed with him and were eating in a soup kitchen. Mother was taking the food home and putting it into the closet to eat later, and the closet got infested with ants. Uncle Johnny thought that was very funny. Eventually the insurance company settled — they took a train to Detroit and picked up a car which Daddy paid for by postdating checks, because they hadn’t gotten the insurance money yet
In 1933 through 1937, they did most of their trips with help from Conoco Touraides
Put out by Continental Oil Company
Letter in one of the Guides
Each guide had marked maps with destinations -
This one goes from Baltimore to Philadelphia to visit my mother's parents, to NJ to visit my dad's sister to Woods Hole and Bar Harbor
There were city maps in addition to segment maps,
lists of things to see in each location
and lists of Hotels, Resorts, Auto Courts, and House Trailer Camps
In 1937, when my mother was pregnant with me, they went as far north as Toronto
- Next entry in the series 'Exploring the USA by Car': My First Six Months of Travel - November 1937 to May 1938
