Ancestry and antique cars, part 3

[bluenose25]

Having determined that my maternal grandfather's first car was likely the '23 Buick Country Gentleman (in part 1), and his second car was likely the 1929 Chevrolet four door sedan (in part 2), I have been looking for a picture of a car that could have more likely been the one that my 14-year-old Mom and her father could have been in when they heard the radio broadcast discussing Canada's declaration of war on Germany. This occurred on September 10, 1939.

 

On another front, I had been looking at a picture of an unknown car with my uncle smiling out of the driver-side window, hands on the steering wheel. The picture only shows the area around this window but there is quite a bit of detail in the picture. My uncle looked to be in his twenties, but it's tricky with old photos. People often look older than they actually are. People grew up faster years ago, it seems. Born in 1919, my uncle joined the Canadian Army when the war came about. I believe this picture was taken before he went overseas, so that would be likely before 1940. The taped up window speaks to a kind of out-for-fun used car mentality. This was all I knew.

 

Because the information available in this picture is rather plentiful, I was able to come up with what I think is a match. But I didn't want to spoil it for anyone who might read this post and want to comment. 

 

I haven't been on this forum for very long and only moments ago learned how to resize a picture. I have more to relate, so I am going to make a second comment as a placeholder because I think I can edit it after the fact and keep the story together. If this doesn't work, the rest of the story will follow somewhere below. I'll post it soon.

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by bluenose25
New information, better date estimate. (see edit history)

[bluenose25]

I have noticed that cars appear in a number of the family pictures I have. Sometimes their inclusion is accidental, sometimes intentional, sometimes unavoidable.

 

The more ever-present cars become, the more they appear accidentally in pictures. Early photographs came out better when taken in daylight, this means they were often intentionally taken outside - where the cars just happen to be. Sometimes a car might appear in a photograph in the same way a member of the family or a prized possession might - people in them, people on them, people around them. Sometimes it is the car we are photographing and people just happen to be included, or not.

 

When I started looking through albums of old photographs for cars, I saw the photographs differently. If the photograph had information written on or about it, the details would usually be when, who, and where taken. No one ever wrote on a picture “Such-and-such in a ’72 Ford Pinto 1.6L Kent I4 off to first year college” (and not just because it was a Pinto). Unless the car was the subject matter, it was usually not named.

 

When I would look through family photo folders of digital scans on my PC, I had to look at Extra Large Icons – I couldn’t do file searches for “Chev” or “four door” because I had never entered that information in the image's name or in its metadata. I had to look at a decent preview, sometimes even a magnification, to see if there was an identifiable car in it.

 

I have a lot of photographs and scanned images. What I don’t have is a photographic memory. I might remember that there were cars in the photos and images, but unless I had made a point of identifying the cars, I might not put two-and-two together to realize that a car in one picture is the same as the car in another picture, even if I could find them to compare.

 

This, in fact, is what happened to me with this car. My Mom had a nice picture of her brother smiling out the driver’s window, and she had a picture of two infant nieces of hers on the lawn in front of the family home. At one time she had told me who the people were, but she didn’t say anything about “the car”. In both cases, it was just there.

 

This is a cropped version of the photo of my Mom’s two young nieces, born in 1936 and 1938. In the full version, the car takes up only 1/12th of the image not 1/3 as it does here. The car is not nearly as prominent. There were two photos, actually, from slightly different angles. I chose this one over the other because it shows the rear door handle whereas the tree hides it in the other.  The two girls are at the center of both originals, fully in view. Here, they are disinterested; in the other, they are looking at the camera.

 

This is the same house and porch as seen in the pics of part 1 and part 2, just from a different angle.

 

I realize now that this is the same car as the one in the picture above. It wasn't my uncle's car, it was the family car.

 

Therefore, in all likelihood, this would have been my maternal grandfather's third car, the one he drove in 1939, with the radio. 

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by bluenose25
Reserved for comment, comment now provided. (see edit history)

[knee-action]

1935 Chevrolet Master DeLuxe sedan (no trunk) or sport sedan (integral trunk). Probably the latter as they were much more popular. 

[bluenose25]

Thx, knee-action, for responding.  From the first photo, I had it pegged as a 1935 Chevy Standard or Master Deluxe. I would defer to your conclusion that it is the Master Deluxe. I am a little confused about the trunk, though. Does this photo show the integral trunk of the sport sedan?

[bluenose25]

A picture of what I think is close to being the same vehicle is interesting. It was described in an article as a "1935 Chevrolet at the Berger dealership in Grand Rapids, Michigan".

 

The full pic at the link is worth a look. 

http://carstylecritic.blogspot.com/2015/10/pontiacs-silver-streak-1935-debut.html

 

The vehicle behind the car is Chevy also, I expect. The front of it can be seen as a reflection in the store window, more of it can be seen at the link.

 

In the window display, there is a sign that says "RADIO". 

 

Libraries and newspaper archives are full of great old pics. Can't wait until they all get digitized and catalogued, and become searchable for content.

 

 

 

 

[John_S_in_Penna]

Mr. Bluenose, you don't need to mar the faces

of the people in your old photos!  Car magazines,

such as Hemmings Classic Car, often publish

old family photos like yours.  People find them

interesting when there's a bit of a personal story

to go with the old cars in the pictures.

[bluenose25]

Thanks, John, I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

 

[jacosta1935]

any idea whatever happened to the car?