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Old 03-05-2014, 10:18 AM   #21
Lona
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We all talk about being sorry we did not interview our elders about the old times but what are you doing to prevent the same thing from happening? I spent two years working on family genealogy but in the end, realized I knew nothing about the personal lives of these people, just birth and death dates. I vowed to write a history of my life to as far back as I could remember. Five years and 95,000 words later, I presented the write up to my kids with no expectations they would be interested in reading it. The intention was to have enough copies lying around in their various households so that one might somehow be preserved for future generations. How marvelous it would have been to have had such a history when doing genealogy work on my own family ancestors.
Your kids and grandchildren will not talk to you about your youth just as you did not talk to your elders. It is up to you to make this happen either by taking the initiative to talk to them or to get your story down in writing yourself........Glen
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Old 03-05-2014, 06:19 PM   #22
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My dad was born in 1907 and spent most of his life working on cars or selling parts. I learned a lot from him, and he gave me my first Model at at age 9. It only took me 53 years to buy another one!

Dad could take a barrel of brake shoes and sort them by application by sight, and the same with generators, starters, and even armatures.

Last summer I went to my first cousins 100th birthday party...and danced with her! She spent most of WWII in Seattle repairing torches and guages for the guys building liberty ships.

Her brother was there and told me how he landed in his Sherman tank at Normandy on D5, made it through the Battle of the Bulge (both tanks on each side of him did not) and how he made it until Germany surrendered.

But, perhaps the most interesting story was one I heard a couple of hears ago from my wife's cousin. He had gone to school before enlisting and had a bachelor's degree in metalurgy. He did his basic training in El Paso, TX (Ft. Bliss).

Upon graduation from basic, he said they were all mustered at the train siding and names were called to board the trains, eastbound for Europe, or westbound for the Pacific.

He was one of five solders left when they stopped calling names and they were told to go back to the barracks until called.

He ended up in Los Alamos, working on the Manhattan Project, as the assistant to the chief metulurgist, who took him back to CT after the war to help him get his Masters degree in metalurgy.

I wish I'd had more time to pump him for details. He passed away last year.
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Old 03-06-2014, 08:13 PM   #23
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My story teller, Edward Noworyta passed away early this week in Chelsea, Michigan at the Towsley Alzheimer Facility. Like I said, the windows are closing quickly.
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Old 03-07-2014, 10:03 AM   #24
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My Dad is on the far left. What I would't give to be able to ask him about a few of the design items on my 53' Merc! This was taken in the Dearborn, MI.
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Old 03-07-2014, 07:44 PM   #25
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I have a related old-timer story from a long-deceased neighbor who lived in the Northeast part of Ohio during the 1920s. He ordered a new car back then, I assume it was one of the lower-production companies though he did not say that.

He took a train to the Detroit factory so that he could drive it home himself. The reason? He said that it was common to see cars delivered out of factories by hired drivers who were trying to rush the car to its destination in order to return and make more money. You would see such vehicles pulled off on the side of the road with steam billowing out of the radiator cap.
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Old 03-08-2014, 12:35 AM   #26
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One of the greatest privileges of my life was becoming friends with an "old timer". We were nearly exactly 60 years of age apart, having met him when he was 83. He was born in 1916 to a family who homesteaded on the west coast of British Columbia.
He grew up in the heydays of the steam logging era of BC of which I had an interest in since a young age, so I was in my element listening to his stories and asking him details about this and that.
His father and uncle were loggers, and upon seeing an old family photograph, I asked about how one of his father's eyes wasn't looking at the camera, though the other one was. "Oh, he got hit in the head by a pike pole working on a log flume!".
He would tell me of the days when he would take a steam ship from Vancouver up to a coastal logging camp, and if you didn't like the food in the cookshack, you'd head out on the next boat and find another job the next day. No problem getting work. Not that it was all roses, he said sometimes the bunkhouses would have lice in the mattresses and so on.
He told me of the time his brother bought the first V8 Ford Roadster ever sold new out the the Powell River Ford agency. It was 1934, and his brother worked at the paper mill, loading rolls of paper onto ships down on the docks. They used handtruck dollys to move 1000lb rolls around. He said they were well balanced, but you had to be a pretty strong guy to move one.
My pal had owned a small fishing boat during the 30s that was powered by a two cylinder Model T engine. There was a man named Frank Osborne who had a machine shop and he outfitted several boats with Model T engines that he had cut in half with a hacksaw and brazed and acytelene welded them somehow.
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Old 05-12-2014, 08:27 PM   #27
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That's a GREAT reason to take your A to a car show! We just had a "Vintage Car Show" at our church last Saturday. I took my '29 Tudor and it brought out a number of "seniors", many of which had great storied to tell. I would often approach them and ask if they car brought back memories which would evoke some wonderful stories. The car took first place in the pre '50 stock class which was neat but it was more fun to visit with the people.

Steve
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Old 05-12-2014, 09:20 PM   #28
Gerald D. Walker
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Another Model A story:
I was in high school in 1950, a friend of mine had this beautiful 1930 Model A solid black coupe his grandfather had given him when he was 15. He was now 17. That summer he and another friend of his, not me, took the entire summer and drove this coupe from Arkansas to southern California, played around all summer on the beach, and then back to Arkansas for the start of school. I asked him where did he get money for gas? He told me that entire summer they didn't pay one cent for gas. "They filled up at night." I didn't ask anymore questions. How did we survive those years without going to jail?
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Old 05-12-2014, 09:59 PM   #29
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Let's don't forget one thing folks.If we don't write these tales down to pass on,no one but us will ever know about them.The older one's of us,me included have a lot of history within.It may be secondhand but it is history that needs to be recorded.
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Old 05-12-2014, 10:57 PM   #30
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You're right Bill in Al, I will tell another one as it relates to Gerald's story. An old guy was telling me of his younger days when him and his pals first got cars back in the late 50s. He said they would drive all over the place, all weekend long, going from town to town and it wouldn't cost them anything. They had rigged up the car with a large hole in the rear floorboard covered by a chunk of plywood. They had acquired a hand crank pump from somewhere and had a long hose with a brass nipple on the end to give it some weight. They would pull into a station and park over the plates they used to fill and dip the inground tanks. A couple of the guys would get out of the car and go have a BS the station attendant and buy some smokes or something. They would keep him distracted while the guy that was left in the backseat of the car would open up the tank hatch working through the hole in the floorboard. He would lower the long hose into the tank and crank the pump like mad. The outflow from the pump had a hose that went into the tank in the trunk of the car. He said they would all take turns cranking the pump at the different stations they would stop at.
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Old 05-13-2014, 12:00 AM   #31
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If you have stories about "back in the day" grab a recorder and tell them. I wish I had the knowledge on how to put them in a book.

I just finished the book "The Last Doughboys". It is a book of interviews and historical background of the last surviving WWI vets. The author interviewed the vets all over the age of 105. He placed family history and historic details of the time, battles, areas and units.

There is no reason what something like that could not be done with Model A's. It is not just about the cars but the times in which the lives were lived.
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Old 05-13-2014, 08:37 AM   #32
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Mike I read that book last winter, pretty amazing what those Doughboys did.

One of the older guys in town told me, talking about not paying for gas, that every nite he and his friends would drive around to the 6 gas stations that were in town then, and tip the hose off of the pumps into his Dodge. They would hold the hose 'up' high and drain the little bit of gas still in the hose. Not really stealing it would have evaporated anyway.

He said they always got enough to cruise the town that night and it was free. Wouldn't have been enough to make it to California doing that!
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:15 AM   #33
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From My Irish side......
My Great grandmother, Bridget E. Finan was born in co. Roscommon, Ireland in 1841, and the "Starvation" was 1845-1848. And she survived until 1933. They never left Ireland and she is buried there. I have pictures of her grave. I would have given anything to be able to speak with her.
Terry



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Originally Posted by Chris in WNC View Post
yes.
seize the moment if you have it.
my great-grandfather, Fred McMillen, lived until I was 16 years old.
If I had not been so damn stupid, I would have spent some afternoons with him and a tape recorder.
The stories he could have told me! his grandfather fled the Irish potato famine in 1841.
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:38 AM   #34
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From the Teutonic branch.....
My great Grandfather emigrated (Beat the guys from the Kaiser's Draft board) Came to Newark, NJ, married a Swiss girl, and began his family. His firstborn child, Hermann Dietzold Jr became a Tool and Diemaker. In 1912, He wanted to take his whole family back to visit Germany. They all said "No we're American!" and stayed here. The Kaiser's Draft board had a long memory and a short rope and he had to leave Germany fast. Back to America! In 1917, we joined WWI and Uncle Hermie enlisted in April, went through the whole war as a machine gunner at the front until Nov.10,1918. If he could have only stayed alive 15 more hours he would have made it. My great grandfather had the tragic experience of seeing his adopted country go to war against his native country, twice in his life. He died in 1943.
Terry


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Originally Posted by Mike V. Florida View Post
If you have stories about "back in the day" grab a recorder and tell them. I wish I had the knowledge on how to put them in a book.

I just finished the book "The Last Doughboys". It is a book of interviews and historical background of the last surviving WWI vets. The author interviewed the vets all over the age of 105. He placed family history and historic details of the time, battles, areas and units.

There is no reason what something like that could not be done with Model A's. It is not just about the cars but the times in which the lives were lived.
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