THE OLD CARS

 

My husband’s maternal grandmother, Lilian Ross Pringle Brasier, is tooling down the road in the family car somewhere in the vicinity of Ontario, Canada.

A close up view.

Another of the family’s cars.  I’ve mentioned before that Lilian’s husband, Harry Brasier, was a new car salesman so they always had nice cars.

L-R: Lilian Ross (she generally used her middle name, Ross, rather Lilian), my husband’s mother, Virginia, (next In line unk,), Virginia’s younger sister, Phyllis, Harry, and his sister, Emily. 

Looks like they were headed somewhere in another car – probably in the ‘30s?

Now we come to my father’s family.  From the rear forward, my Grandma B. (for Bradley) Harriet (Hattie) Bell Smedley Bradley, her daughters Harriet and Frances, Ruth on the running board, and my Dad, Herbert.  He was called “Bert” or “Bertie” then, but somewhere along the way it was changed to “Herb”.  Much better. J

“Bertie” and Ruth camping at Lake Tahoe with the family tent and car in the background.

My Dad, probably in his late teens or early 20s (?), working on his jalopy.  His younger sister, Ruth, is on the porch.

Dad with a better car in the ‘30s

By June, 1939 he had a pretty snazzy looking coupe.  He’s on his honeymoon with my Mom, here.  I came along a year later and at some point after that they had to have a bigger car.

I was 7 on this camping trip and had a 4 yr old brother and 2 yr old sister and we had a 1942 maroon Pontiac sedan.  Kind of reminds me of my own family.  When my husband and I were married he had a sporty little red ’68 Karmann Ghia.  It worked okay for a while with our first child, but eventually we had to move up to a Datsun station wagon!  Too bad. The sporty Ghia was fun to drive.

An early car of my Grandma Louise’s. (My Mom’s Mom)

As I recall this car of her’s was a kind of green color but I don’t know the make, model, or year?

At some point later on she was driving a 1953 aqua & white Chevy Bel Air hardtop coupe with white sidewall tires!  She named it “Betsy”.  The way I found out the name was when I was riding home with her from camping at Lake Tahoe.  Coming down the mountains she came to a curve she was going a little too fast for and we slid sideways into a gravel turnout for a moment until she got the car back on the road.  Recovered, she patted the dashboard and said “Slow down, Betsy.” and I remember thinking ‘Slow down Betsy?!!’  But we arrived home safely.

Speaking of Lake Tahoe, these folks are traveling over Donner Pass in 1920 which was one way to get to the lake.

Staying with Tahoe, this is the wonderful old Meeks Bay Resort Lodge that is firmly established in my memory of camping at Meeks when I was growing up.  It was a great old log lodge.  Unfortunately, it burned down several years ago and what was built to replace it is a sad comparison.   But just look at all those old cars parked around the old lodge!

The old market just up the highway from Meeks Bay.  There was a closer market to Meeks campground where we shopped in the early years, but when it closed we began shopping here.  By then, however, it was in the 1960s & no longer called Cecil’s Market, it was the PDQ Market with a little bit of everything one might need for camping, cabining, and going to the beach.

The old market we shopped in, in the 1940s & ‘50s, and by golly there’s a car there behind the tree on the right.  It’s not an old car, though – at least not one from the ‘10s, ‘20s, ‘30s, or ‘40s.

The old Meeks Bay Theatre and on one end was a café serving hamburgers, fries, milkshakes, soda pop and the like, plus slices of cake & pie and all that good café stuff.  We’d go there maybe a couple of times while we were camping.  I remember one lunch especially because we kids were told we could choose anything we wanted so I went for a cheeseburger & fries with lemon meringue pie for dessert.  It was either a milkshake or the pie & I love anything lemon so it wasn’t a hard choice to make. J  I think I was 14 or 15 at the time.  And again, look at the old cars parked there – ‘30s/’40s?

Instead of Tahoe, other folks headed to Yosemite National Park for vacation or sight-seeing.  I’m guessing this was, again, in the ’30s or ‘40s?  They’re entering or leaving the park through the Arch Rock entrance on highway 140.

And last comes my brother’s first car – a 1956 Chevy 2 door hardtop which my youngest sister is modeling.  He let me drive it for 3 months while he was in Navy boot camp.  It was great.  I was living in my own apartment and, for a while, had ‘my own’ car till he came home and sold it.  Bummer.  But I had fun tooling around in it for those 3 months.  Of course that’s back when gas was only 35₡ a gallon!

:->

La Nightingail

P.S.

I themed my post on old cars, but I did have a photo to perfectly match the prompt – a photo you’ve seen before: one of my Mom walking along a busy sidewalk in San Francisco in 1937, taken by my Dad who worked for the same company she did and wanted to meet her.  He hoped giving her the picture he took of her would act as an introduction, and so it did.

And oh well, if I’m going to include the one of my Mom, I guess I should include this one – the only other photo I have of walking along a street.  The leader Is my middle sis, then me, then my youngest sis, and bringing up the rear is her boyfriend at the time – taken  on Carmel Avenue in El Cerrito, Calif. in 1968 on Easter Sunday.  There is a church up on the corner which is why there are so many cars parked on the street.

J