Chapter 2, Part 2: Ten people in a car, 1,200 miles, 18 days.

In the autumn of 1917, BM (Pop's friend that came to Kansas with him from New York in 1904) bought a new Dodge Touring Car.

(The Dodge Touring Car was, in 1917, the #2 selling vehicle in the United States, behind the wildly popular Ford Model T. It was positioned as slightly more upscale: it had a steel frame when many others were made of wood and a 12-volt electrical system when most cars had 6.  It cost about $800 new in 1917 which is about $13,267 adjusted for inflation to 2009.)

(This isn't BM's car, but rather something Google so graciously served up to me.)

Our family and BM's took a trip to New York to visit our respective grandparents.  Altogether, there were ten people, counting children and infants.  (Ten people in that car?!  OMG  How?)  John and Laura of the Smith family were the same ages and Bill and I, eight and five years old.  The four of us enjoyed a harmonious relationship throughout the trip.  I don't recall any territorial problems within the close confines of that small car.  In addition to the 4 parents there was my sister Emma and an infant daughter, Maxine.  She was a pleasant baby, never becoming an annoyance to us older children.  Nowadays, so many being crowded into one car would be considered an extreme hardship.

Of course, there was the usual division of labor, with the women doing the cooking and the traditional household chores and caring for the baby.  The men pitched the tents, gathered wood for the fires, fixed flat tires, discussed money matters and administered occasional discipline to us children.

The car was heavily overloaded (How could it not be with TEN PEOPLE IN IT? Looking at that picture, I don't even understand where the suitcases went, much less all the people), far beyond the load capacity of the tires, and they became the greatest expense of the trip.  One tire blew out when we crossed a railroad track as we left the very town it had been bought in.  It was several years later before tires would be expected to last as much as two thousand miles.  Even then, carcasses of tires were cotton cord.  it was not until after World War II that nylon (a much stronger fiber) replaced cotton in tires.

It is difficult to fathom the United States in 1917.

We found only thirty or forty miles of paved roads and the pavement was only 8 feet wide.  If there were 2 cars approaching from opposite directions, one had to pull over and get off the pavement while the other passed.  When the dirt alongside the narrow pavement was muddy, as it often was, only the most gracious of gentlemen gave way to other motorists by driving off into the mud, allowing others to pass.  I imagine a few misunderstandings occurred, maybe even a few bad words.  (Bad words!  To fundamental Methodists from Kansas!  OH MY!) Most roads were dirt, with only a minor portion of them being topped with gravel. They were little more than improved wagon trails.  (Which were in heavy use as few as 35 years ago when Grandma Harvey came to Kansas in a wagon.)

Some forty years before the trip, bicycling clubs began publishing maps in some parts of the country.  Road maps for motorists did not appear until just prior to that trip and inaccuracies were common.  As a rule, we depended on verbal instructions from people along the way and, when available, the primitive road signs.

At that time there were only two major highways across the United States, and we traveled on both of them.  They had bridges out, muddy roads and poor road signs.  One was called the Lincoln Highway, marked by red, white and blue horizontal,  stripes, painted haphazardly on telephone poles and fence posts or wherever the painter happened to paint them.  The other was the Cannon Ball, marked by a black cannon ball placed over a white background.  (I Googled for a while, but wasn't able to find more than passing reference to this highway; no images or maps.)  Sometimes we followed one sign and at other times the other sign.  Occasionally the two ran congruently along the same route.

 

There were no highway bridges across the Missouri or Mississippi rivers.  A ferry we used to cross the Missouri was down a steep hill to the river.  The road was muddy and slick from a recent rain.  I remember being afraid we would start sliding on the down-slope, be unable to stop and continue to slide across the and plunge off the other side into the muddy, flood-stage river.

About nine o-clock one October morning, near Galesburg, Illinois, on a dirt road, we came to a small creek about ten feet wide where the bridge had been washed out during the previous night.  Pop and BM found two planks about three by twelve inches, long enough to span the small creek and placed them so that the wheels of the car could be driven over.  All got out of the car except BM who drove slowly over to the far side.  The rest of us walked across the planks, got into the car and went on our way.  That took place on the Lincoln Highway.  For all I know, we may have been the only travelers to pass that way the entire day.  I was five years old.

It wasn't until 1924 (seven years later) that any serious attempt was made to develop a system of highways in the United States.  Even the streets of cities were paved with wooden blocks, brick or cobblestones.  Frequent rains made most interurban roads muddy, necessitating a shift to second or first gear.  It seems that at least half of the trip in 1917 was driven in lower gears.

Back home, anytime we went to another farm or to town, we had to open and close several gates. Rarely did we travel more than a mile without having to stop to open/close a gate.  I marveled that all the way to New York, we didn't have to open a single gate.  I found that astounding.

After starting out with $400 ($6,633 in 2009 dollars), the men had to wire home for more money to complete the trip.  Finally, after 18 days of rain, muddy roads and flat tires, we arrived in Cattaragus, New York. (Very near Buffalo.)  Our family moved in with Great Grandmother Kysor, who had raised my father.

(The trip from Silverdale, Kansas to Cattaraugus, New York is about 1,200 miles according to Google, but I can't help but think it must have been a longer distance before actual highways.  Google also says that this drive, that took them 18 days, would take a little more than 18 hours now.  What a difference about a hundred years makes.)

Comments

[Andy]

I blogged about this a couple of years ago as I was flying across the country in 4 hours comparing it to the several months+ to cross the country in the mid 19th century (my knowledge of this subject comes from extensive simulations with the game Oregon Trail). I've never thought about how even after the invention of the car, they still didn't have roads.

I thought it was interesting reading the big driving factor behind Eisenhower's push for the interstate system was that as a young solider, it took over a month for him and a convoy of trucks and tanks to get from DC to San Francisco.

Also, I found this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Ball_Route

[Susan Freel]

Thanks for including maps and photographs. I extensively traveled the United States as a child, in a car on modern type highways (my dad worked for the government). This trip is way beyond my imagination! I can't wait for the next post!

[Ellsworth Mciltrot]

10 people, including luggage, in a car like that? Wow. There's also the fact that road trips back then were different compared to the more convenient ones we have today. It's quite amazing to hear stories like this and get some information about driving back then...

[Brittanie Holderness]

Yeah, it's kinda amazing. Despite all its limitations when compared to the comforts of many vehicles today, that old car managed to perform beautifully, even when it was overloaded with passengers. Thanks to that, transportation and those long road trips evolved into something that's much more convenient and comfortable in the present era.

[Mickey Doshi]

There was a time when our group of friends went on a 7-hour trip to an awesome beach place, and we sat cramped inside a car that was clearly filled way over its capacity! There were 8 of us in a 4-seater. Everyone was struggling inside, but we had so much fun, we only remembered the joyful memories! =)

[Duncan Moredock]

I can't fathom the excitement your adventure has given the ten people in this joyride. 1,200 miles is a lengthy distance and, with the 18 days you spent with each other, I guess it really was worthwhile.