Our New Car

A 1949 Two-Door Sedan - similar to our "new" car
 which was white and probably had "blackwalls".

     In the 1930s and 1940s. automobiles became the primary means of transportation in the heartland of America. The days of the horse and buggy had passed into history.  We can argue perhaps over horse manure versus gasoline fumes, but the fact was that the automobile, and particularly the truck in farm country, saved valuable time and was much more than a mere convenience.  Motorized vehicles were also a symbol of status and affluence. 

    In the car department, we young Norrises were challenged.  Our family vehicles until about 1952 were a 1939 black Chevy and a Model T Ford truck.  The truck sat discarded in the yard among the
farm buildings. In fact, I do not remember ever riding in it on the road.  We kids played in and on it as if it were a big toy.  My brother, the budding mechanic, was fascinated by engines.  He occasionally poked around under the hood.  Daddy, who was always more comfortable behind the tail of a horse than the steering wheel of any vehicle, clearly held no hope that the truck could be revived.

     The 1939 Chevy always seemed strange because it had a small trunk on the back that folded up and latched like a foot locker! The only one like it that I have ever seen is in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI.  Finally, our Chevy's problems became terminal and Daddy decided that a "new" car was a necessity.

     The tiny town nearest us had no car dealerships but there were several in neighboring towns where we often shopped.  Why we ended up buying our car from a dealer 15 miles away on the edge of the Indian Reservation, I have no clue, but the reason was probably related to price.
     I had been much relieved when I had learned that the car was a white 1949 Ford (three years new).  I was afraid Daddy might buy the 1948 model which was a rounded hunk of metal I thought ugly and unappealing.  One of our neighbors had one and it looked like a round black bug crawling down the road.

   I will never forget how excited we were that Saturday afternoon when Daddy finally went to buy the car and drive it home.  We had told all our friends at school that we were getting a new car.  We waited, watching the road to catch the first glimpse of our new vehicle. Daddy and the car finally drove into our yard with us dancing all around it, begging for a ride.  Mommy and Grammy were amused and much more subdued in their enthusiasm.

     The next day was Sunday.  We dressed up in our Sunday best and piled into our larger, more comfortable "new" car to go to church. It had rained the night before, but the new day was sunny and bright.  Because the Sunday School children were not ones we went to grade school with each day, we had the joy of announcing yet again that we had a new car.  Our happy bubble was burst very quickly that morning when several of our Christian companions immediately scoffed that the car wasn't new at all.  It was used, they said, with a bit of disdain.  Because we were always on the outer social fringes with those church kids, we were easily cowed by such remarks.

     That we had a used car soon became abundantly clear.  After church, we climbed back into the car, Daddy behind the wheel with Mommy beside him.  That was the way we always rode because neither Mommy nor Grammy ever learned how to drive.  Grammy sat in the back with us.

     The car was parked on the street facing town so Daddy had to turn around to head back east toward our farm.  This was usually accomplished each Sunday by making a huge U-turn at the next intersection.  Daddy swerved out to do a wide circle as always.  As the car came around facing east, the door on Mommy's side flew open and she fell out into the street.

     I remember feeling stunned because it had never dawned on me that such a thing could happen.  Daddy stopped the car quickly and Mommy climbed back in her seat.  She was absolutely mortified.  There were many people all around us,  leaving church services nearby.  Several immediately came over expressing concern and asking if Mommy was hurt.  She assured everyone that she was fine.

      When Mommy tumbled out of the car, she fell into a mud puddle left from the rain the night before.   The pretty pink wool coat she was wearing was stained with mud.  We were all a bit shaken up.  Daddy, of course, was cussing the car (Methodist style), the Ford Motor Company, and the car dealer who had sold him a pile of junk.  But we weren't home yet.

     On the gravel road about halfway home, we suddenly heard a thump and a grinding noise.  Daddy stopped the car next to the gravel ridge that the road grader always left along the edge of the road.  He climbed out and walked around to the back of the car.  We heard more cussing and grumbling.  Daddy reported that the gas tank was now dragging on the gravel road.  One of the two metal attachment bands securing the tank to the bottom of the car had broken loose.

     Daddy stood there on the road, dressed in his Sunday suit, trying to figure out what to do.  He said that it could be dangerous to drive the car with the gas tank dragging on the gravel because we could have an explosion.  Chicken that I always was as a kid, anxious about anything remotely risky, I was ready to get out and walk the last two miles home.  The thought of being incinerated in the back of our new 2-door car  while the three of us and Grammy tried to get out of the back seat was scary.

     As we sat there, broken down on the side of the road, a Good Samaritan came along in the form of our neighbor to the north in his overalls and pickup truck, one of the beer-drinking Missouri Synod Lutherans who obviously was not going home from church.  He liked to run down chickens that strayed into the road with his truck.  On that day, however, I forgave him for his mean sport, because he had a coat hanger in his truck, an item not found in most tool boxes.

     Of course, our neighbor, affluent by farm standards, always drove cars that were really new.  He thought our plight was humorous.  Together, he and Daddy wired the gas tank up so that it no longer dragged on the road.  We crept slowly home with the neighbor following behind us in his truck.  I was very nervous and extremely happy to get out of our wonderful new car when we got home.

     Daddy drove the car back to the dealer the next day and had it fixed.  We drove that '49 Ford for many years.  We never did have a truly new car.  I think my slight distrust of used cars today probably has roots in that childhood experience.