Re: Mystery Photo

George W Pearce Wrote:
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> That auto looks to be a '39 Chev to me. If the
> picture was taken in '45 or '46 someone must have
> taken really great care of it for after 6 or 7
> years of use most of the cars back then showed
> their ages through fender dings and tears, mangled
> bumpers and faded paint - this one shows none of
> those things.

When I was in Jr High School in the 1970's an old feller died and the folks who bought his farm found a huge pile of old hay in the back of a barn. When they dug it out, they found an almost new 1941 car up on blocks. Turned out it was his son's car and the lad had put it up on blocks before he went off to WWII. The young man died on some island and his dad apparently couldn't stand to look at the car so he covered it up and left it. And yeah, I've seen the car, the story is real.

A lot of people just parked their cars for the duration of the war. Tires, gas, oil etc, all rationed or just plain impossible to get so why bother to try to use the dang thing? Just hitch up ol' Dobbin and feel patriotic!

Also, back in the 1930's my grandpa used to put his car up on blocks every year about November and leave it in the barn until May or June when the roads dried out. The road past his farm was not the part of the Iowa the Powers That Were cared about getting "out of the mud."

Hank