Family albums ‘n four-speeds – my family’s cars

Published by Mike on December 31, 2009

Judy in Conemaugh with Pontiacs and a Chevrolet

Since I’ve started asking for your family album photos that feature cars, I’ve promised to show some of my own family’s car photos, and I finally had the chance to dig through the family albums over Christmas weekend when Heather and I went to visit my folks. While doing so, I not only discovered photos I’d never before seen, but I also discovered family history I’d never before known.

So let’s start with the above photo, depicting my mom, Judy, in front of her grandmother’s house in Conemaugh, Pennsylvania. In the background are a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain Deluxe two-door sedan, a 1956 Pontiac Chieftain 860 two-door sedan, and a 1955 Chevrolet. My mother was born in 1956, and I’ll bet she was no more than two years old when this photo was taken.

That ‘53 Pontiac belonged to Mom’s father, Joe Duffey, pictured here in the Pontiac and holding Mom’s hand. This photo appears to have been taken in front of the house Mom grew up in on Scottwood Road in Columbus, Ohio, maybe a little earlier than the previous photo.

Joe, as we can see from the above photos, was a Chevrolet mechanic. Mom also said he was in the SeaBees, starting about ‘42 or ‘43, when he turned 18. Joe also had a 1957 Chevrolet, and according to Scottwood Road lore, he had that ‘57 tuned right – so souped up, in fact, that his wife, Vi, couldn’t drive it. Whether he raced it (one would assume he did), we have no record. If anybody knows much about late 1950s drag racing in Columbus, Ohio, please get in touch.

The ‘57 would be the last car he would ever buy, however. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1961, leaving Vi to raise her two kids alone. She never remarried.

Vi, whose family hailed from the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, area, had at least one prior suitor, Bob Montgomery, shown in the above two photos. The Packard (1936? maybe 1937?) may have just been a random background car, but I suspect Bob owned the 1947 Plymouth. It wouldn’t have been Vi’s – she didn’t learn to drive until after she married Joe.

I don’t know much about this 1954 Ford Crestline, except that it’s pictured here with Charles Rager – Vi’s father – in front of his house in Conemaugh.

Stepping back in time for just a moment, we see Charles and his wife Dorothy, standing by a car I’ve yet to identify.

Vi eventually got a 1965 Dodge Dart, shown here in the Scottwood Road garage with Mom and her brother David. Mom learned to drive on that Dart, so Vi still had it in 1972.

Mom also said that Vi bought a 1974 Nova new. But the car I remember Vi driving, however, was this circa 1985 Toyota Celica. I was always fascinated by the power antenna and the fold-down back seat that allowed access to the trunk.

Mom’s first car was this 1967 Simca, shown here on Scottwood Road with Mom and Dad’s first dog, Ronnie. She bought it in 1978, and she hated that car. Next to this photo in the album, she wrote “Lemon.” “I had it about a minute and a half,” she said. “If you opened more than one door at a time, it would collapse in the middle.”

Dad had a couple interesting cars as a teen. When he met Mom, he drove a 1963 Impala SS 327, then later had this 1969 Camaro SS convertible. The previous owner had repainted it metallic maroon, and Dad had swapped in a 350. His next car, which we were unable to locate photos of, was a 1966 Chevelle, which had a solid-lifter 302 from a Z/28, along with a Muncie four-speed. It was stolen from right in front of his parents’ house and showed up a couple days later, stripped, in front of a junkyard on the other side of town. The not-so-funny thing about that story – the people who owned the junkyard also lived right across the street from his parents. Dad could never prove anything, though, and he didn’t have insurance on the Chevelle, so he ended up writing it off.

But then Dad joined the Marine Corps, and he and Mom (married in ‘76) left for his base in Twentynine Palms, California, in their 1975 Monza.

Like the Simca, the Monza was not well-loved by our family. It blew a head gasket on their way back from a trip to Tijuana shortly before Dad left the Corps in December 1977. They moved back to Columbus and for a while, they drove around in a 1964 Impala they got from Dad’s brother, David. But right after I was born in April 1979, Dad decided he didn’t want to drive me around in a junky old car (LOL), so he bought one of the first Chevrolet Citations (ROFLOL). Dad recalls that one rather fondly, if only because it swallowed a lot of stuff. Which was good, because my brother Joe came along in 1980 and my sister Beth came along in 1984, and the 1980 Chevette that my Dad later bought (used) as a commuter didn’t hold much stuff at all. I don’t recall the Chevette hanging around that long – Mom and Dad bought a GMC Safari (a rare five-speed, in fact) in 1985. But the Citation stayed until Dad bought an S-10 in 1991.