My Life in the Little Brown House, part 30: Cars and car trips

Occasionally in the summertime there would be shopping trips to Fort Dodge, perhaps in connection with getting ready for school to begin in the fall. The whole family would go, perhaps taking one route on the way to Fort Dodge, using the old “river road” as the way neared Fort Dodge. It was along this road that Gene and Vivian had their little blue house early in their married life. U.S. Gypsum had facilities in Fort Dodge and apparently mined gypsum in the vicinity for use in its manufacturing operations. Anyway there was an overhead tramway crossing the river road at one point, with little cars for transporting the gypsum running on suspended cables. As children we were always interested to see them running, and were disappointed if they happened to be inactive.

Shopping for the children would be principally in the 5 and 10-cent stores (Woolworth’s and Kresge’s) but my mother would shop for clothes etc. at a place called The Boston Store — sort of a department store. The return trip might take the “Calendar” road which was several miles farther west and passed through the small communities of Callender and Moorland. Sometimes my parents would treat us all to an ice cream cone at the start of the trip back. We would finish the cones and then want a drink of water which was always delayed by our mother until we got home. The only items I recall purchasing on any of these trips were two small cast iron cars, one a coupe and the other a truck. They had disappeared before the move to the farm.

The family car during the early and middle 1920s was a boxy four-door Chevrolet sedan. Actually it belonged to my grandfather Strand and was traded in when my parents bought the Essex in 1929. I think I father compensated my grandfather for his equity in the Chevrolet. Perhaps it was in 1929 when the car was acquired that the family made a trip in it to Rock Island to visit my Uncle Serenus, Aunt Edith, and cousin Eugene. Or it could have been a year or so later. Of this trip I have little snippets of recollection. The family had few or no suitcases so my father had a wooden box made that fit in the floor on the back seat, to contain clothes etc. for the trip. This box was later used by him for storing his woodworking tools etc.

The trip from Gowrie to Rock Island covers perhaps 200 miles, so it was a trip of five to six hours in the Essex with its top speed of 40 to 45 mph. I can recall my mother urging my father to keep the speed up, she was probably having a time coping with tired and bored offspring, cooped up in cramped quarters for an unusually long time.

Of the stay in Rock Island I remember sleeping in the same bed as my cousin Eugene, and hearing the strange and vaguely frightening sounds of the city as I went to sleep. I think we stayed a couple of days and saw amongst other things a sort of grotto (manmade) constructed by a Palmer chiropractic business. Of the trip back I have no recollection.


1929 Essex