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In the fall of 1931 Henry Ford was preparing to end the successful run of the Model A. Under extreme technical difficulties and very late in the model year, he introduced the V-8 to lighter pockets than had been available before.
The last engine of the Ford Tri-Motor airplane roared to life as Burt Richardson "tied" himself in, at the same time acting like he wasn't scared. He had been to Detroit previously for the Model A roll out in '28, but they took buses that trip. It was a short flight from Buffalo, but the butterflies were enjoying the flight more than he was. This better be one great car Henry has to show us he muttered under his breath. Actually the plane was very comfortable and popular to the newly burgeoning commercial flyer as Burt realized, when he awoke during their decent into the Motor City. He white knuckled it even so, remembering he had to go home in this thing. Lake Erie isn't the Atlantic but Burt wasn't Charlie Linburgh either.
The unveiling of the '32 model line for Ford dealers wasn't as glamorous as one might think. They arrived from all over the country and were herded into buses for the short trip to Ford heaven. Today, manufacturers call this kind of place the "skunk works", a place where they design and build the prototypes. At that time Ford's was a series of long wooden buildings with skylight windows and planked floors. Security was fairly tight by the standard of the day, almost making Burt feel uneasy as they passed through the gates entering a large courtyard with high solid fences topped with curly wire.
Even with the Model A rollout fresh in his memory Burt wasn't prepared for the '32 Ford. "Katie Bar The Door", check out the three window coupe and the Phaeton and all the other great bodies, Burt couldn't wait for his test ride. They rolled out onto banked test track to try out the suspension and steering, which combined with the hot new V-8 was a real head turner. When Burt got his hands on a load of these babies, he wouldn't have to sell any of them, people would be begging him to take their money.
Several months later the first shipments arrived at the Ford dealership on Locust street in Lockport, New York. A gorgeous Victoria caught Burt's eye, he knew exactly where he was going to show that one.
My mom was a nurse, starting at age 17, in 1926. At that time, a person didn't need a drivers license, and mom hit the road young and kept going with a succession of automobiles until she was 85. In all those years she never was ticketed, and only had two accidents, neither of them her fault, she said.....
By 1932, the year of "the" Ford, she had driven a Dodge phaeton , an Ford A roadster and an Oakland coupe. Being a young single female in those times it wasn't easy to find places to live, so many of the nurses at the TB sanitarium where she worked lived in dormitory style housing provided by the institution.
It was in these surroundings that my mom met Mary Margaret Sullivan. Mary was a very independent women, especially for 1932, and the confines of these living conditions really bugged her. It was during the start of their friendship that they met Burt Richardson and started a trend that would last over thirty years. You see, Burt was a car salesman, but not the stereotype you may be imagining, he loved cars, he cared about his customers and he was very quiet.
It's not clear just how he came into the girls lives at this point, but for their sakes it was a very good thing. You see, Burt took care of his customers before, during and all the way to the next sale. Burt never stopped caring, Every year or two he's just show up bringing them doughnuts and asking if the coffee was on, and oh by the way I've got a car outside you might like. Burt never had a car the girls didn't like, until many years later, but in 1958 the tail fins were stacked against him.
Late in 1932, Ford put on its biggest roll out since 1928 and the introduction of the Model A. The first Ford V-8, and touted to be quiet and fast! Burt had found a car he could love and sell, and when Mary Margaret saw the car he brought out to the "San" to show the girls, she was in love too. Truth be known, Burt liked the car and the girls so well he just brought it out to show them as an excuse to drive it. Shortly after Mary Margaret saw it he never got to drive it again. You see Burt closed sales long before he ever realized it half the time, but he was just an innocent bystander in this love affair. The Vicky stole the Mary Margaret's heart. September and October in western New York state are a sight to behold, the colors along the Niagara river are second to none, but it doesn't last long and one day, the thrill is gone and winter is there big time. Mary Margaret's Victoria was not going to sit outside in winter ever......., they salt the roads in New York state and she couldn't stand the thought of the fenders falling off her '32 Ford, so she rented the upstairs of a house down the road from work. The genteel lady owner had an empty garage that would allow the '32 to repose during the long winter months. From November 1932 until the spring of '51, the Vicky spent every winter in the same garage. For 19 years she took the bus to work in the winter even though she had a car in the garage. Poor Burt, upstaged by a '32 Ford, he had no idea he wasn't alone, the '32 Ford is still having the same effect 75 years later. However he had my mom, and in 1933 showed up at her doorstep with a maroon 1933 Ford tudor, and best of all it was faster than her Oakland by a bunch. She loved it, and Burt had to walk home again!
The list go's on over the years, slowed by WWII, my mom kept her 1940 Pontiac for eight years. She had a lot of Pontiacs because the Ford dealer moved and Burt stayed, so he sold Pontiacs. He didn't have to walk home so often. In 1955 she bought the first Pontiac V-8 with stick shift on the column, she kept it for six years, long enough for me to get to be a teen ager and learn how to drive, interpret that as drag the local cruise spots, I was exited to say the least. Her way of teaching me was to sit in the passenger seat and read the paper when she came home from the "San", while I bumped and jerked the clutch and would barely make 2nd gear when we would run out of driveway.
Later, when we had moved to a new place, her best friend Naomi would arrive in her beautiful '53 Ford, also a Victoria, and after I had made a few dozen trips around the circular drive she would have just enough gas to get home to Middleport. Then there was my rich buddie around the corner, he and I used to run up and down his long driveway in his mom's '53 Buick Skylark convertible, now that was a step up!
Return with us now to 1951. Up to that point the only love in Mary Margaret's life had been the '32 Vicky and the kids she cared for every day. At thirty nine years old she had spent her energies , talent and time on her career and had all along been quite fulfilled, until Chick Daily showed up. He was forty five and had lost his wife during the war and didn't expect to ever fall in love again. Mary Margaret still lived just down the road, in 1940 the owner had died, and using her savings the house was hers. Eleven years had passed and the house needed some work, Chick was the first contractor she called... the rest is history.
By this time I had been to the house many times as a little shaver, and had sat behind the wheel of the '32 in her drive and dreamed of rolling down the road, even though I couldn't see over the wheel. But I remember the smell of the car, the feel of the mohair and how it matted over, the big long shifter and pedals I couldn't reach.... Chick had a nice house in Carlisle Gardens on the west end of Lockport. He had built it when the area was just growing, and he and Mary Margaret set to living live there in 1951. She rented her house out by the "San" to a young doctor and his wife and the cycle went on. The Vicki was moved to the new garage, but Chick had a Buick, and a Ford pickup, so the Vicki was retired, put up on blocks and covered with a tarp. In the late 70's we would go out there with our kids, and Mary Margaret Sullivan Daily would tell me, yes get out there and show your son the Vicki! So Jay would sit in the seat I had sat in so many years before, and wonder at the long shifter and the funny upholstery, and go vroom vroom!!!
Time go's on, I moved to the west coast , my son grew up and we had lots of rod, bikes, etc. Chick passed away in 1983, and Mary Margaret Sullivan Daily carried on with her life and she still had the Vicki.
My work takes me around the country every once in a while and so over the years I have visited my mom and home town several times a year all this time. We would go out to the Gardens and visit Mary Margaret every time we were in town. If she had ever found that I had been home and didn't come out for pie or cookies or sweet cherries from her trees, she would have been wounded. The last few years I took her to Gasport for ice cream, and to some local car events at Olcott Beach to see the old cars. She resented the terminology, because to her they never grow old. Her Vicki was still a new car.
Then as she found herself nearer 90, she decided she had to do some planning. She called and inquired as to when I be home again, she said she had some things to discuss. I gave her my schedule, and she was very glad to hear I'd be there in a week.
She asked me to come to the house on Sunday for dinner, Who could pass this up? As usual, I visited the old Ford out there in the garage under neath the same tarp, the one that Chick had put there nearly 40 years before, now quite full of holes and hardly able to do its job. I sat on the mohair, now I could reach the pedals, the shifter had shrunk, but I still couldn't see out of the windshield.
Well, I was in for quite an eventful afternoon. Another guest arrived for dinner, his name was Seaward Elwyn Sand, and he was Mary Margaret Sullivan Daily's lawyer. He had been her lawyer since the 60s and obviously cared a great deal for her. They spent a great deal of time explaining the plans for her estate and for me. She told me the story of her friendship with my mom, the saga of the car, and of having cared for me since I was little. She also expressed her belief that I loved that '32 Ford Victoria as much as she did. She had always regretted that I had left Lockport, so she was turning the Vicky over to me then and there with the hope that I would restore it in her garage. Well.... can you imagine????
Be rest assured I thanked her and told her I would take good care of her in any way I could, and that the Vicki was about to regain life. During the next few years, I spent a lot of time in the garage cleaning and repairing the car, while my mom and Mary Margaret would go to lunch with the girls from the "San" or just kibitz on the back porch about former times. Remember these ladies went to church in buggies for crying out loud, and have seen a bunch of changes.
After many visits and some major surgery on the Vicki, it came to life again. For 44 years it had waited to hit the streets of Lockport again with new life and just a little more horse power. Mary Margaret thinks the color and the motor are just a little too loud, and questioned why the front tires are smaller than the rear. But she enjoys the air conditioning, and the Big Band sounds on the radio. We take rides to Niagara Falls and out to the ice cream place on the way to Gasport. However, what Mary Margaret Sullivan Daily still can't figure out is why everyone is smiling at her and waving, she's forgotten that since 1932, she's had that same smile.
D. Merritt More M.ph-sOB-FOS
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