This week on History’s Attic. Why would a lady of 75 years old that does not even drive walk into Tilton Motors in Gregory SD, buy a New 1955 Ford Fairlane Victoria 2 door Hardtop Auquatone Blue car, and have it delivered to her garage on the north edge of Gregory?

And my grandmother Christina Papousek did it. She came to Gregory in 1904 and homesteaded her own piece of land, she was not one to take no for a answer. But the backstory is she had a son and daughter and many relatives 8 hours away at New Hampton, Iowa. She wanted to go see them, and our family at that time did not have a car with enough room or mechanical repair to make it that far.

So that’s when the Victoria entered the picture, that car was parked in the garage all the time except every year when it was time to go to Iowa dad would charge the battery up air the tires and back the Vick out. We loaded that car’s trunk to the brim for a week’s stay. Dad Woody driving, Grandma Christina shotgun, Mom Leola in the back and us 3 kids. Dad dropped that Cruiseomatic into high (automatic it’s called now) and we took off. Taking Highway 18 all the way we crossed over into Iowa and then the highway turned narrow with cement curbs lining the sides. Dad always said they didn’t waste land in Iowa for Highways like SD, the land was worth too much.

And wouldn’t you know like clockwork we would run into a national Guard slow moving caravan every dang time we went. Dad was not one to poke along, so us kids sensed a race to the finish would soon start. Dad eased up behind the first truck and then stomped the pedal down into passing gear and that big V8 Roared to life, and we were off. Mom had her arm out holding us kids back, no seat belts in those days. We started repeating that process for at least three miles of trucks swerving in and out like the best carnival ride ever. Dad would do good but every so often he would come back in a little to hot and ram that curb with the passenger front tire. That big old ford would rear up like the best bucking bronc going. Grandma and mom would go up to screaming at the top of their lungs WOODY!!!! then he would pull it back in just in the nick of time. I often thought if a guy did that with one of the new modern cars, we have now it would have folded then in half, but that old ford just kept a rolling not skipping a beat and on we went to New Hampton. This went on for 5 or 6 years till grandma passed away and by then we had got our own family car to make the trips. but that car when sold could not have had more than 8 thousand miles on it.

Author Richard Papousek, August 2023