Father's New Car

by Velda P. Hancock

In the summer of 1916, my father bought a new car, a Maxwell.  Also, that summer, he decided to do some remodeling of our home.

He planned to tear down the two old lumber rooms on the west side of our house and replace them with two bedrooms and a kitchen on the west and a screened porch on the south and east of the house.

He had hired Elliot Long to do the job. He was going to begin tearing away the old lumber rooms that day but needed to run an errand into town before starting. He got into the new car with mother beside him and young Freeman in the back He backed out of the garage and began to turn around but instead of putting his foot on the brake he stepped on the foot feed for the gas and the car started to go backwards around and around the yard.

Mother was in the front holding on for dear life and Freeman was in the back jumping up and down and yelling with fright. I was standing in the yard and fled to safety to keep from being hit.  Father finally managed to get the car stopped before doing any damage. Mother made sure he knew how to drive better before getting in the car with him again.

News spread in the little town about the incident with each telling it got a little bigger and better.

Father started to tear away the old rooms to prepare for the carpenter. He had quite a bit done by late afternoon. A neighborhood boy, Willie PIumb, came by and seeing the rooms partly tom off, exclaimed, "Oh, is this what Bishop Palmer did when he backed his car out this morning?"