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Friday, October 7, 2016

The Gypsy Rogers

In looking for photos of the forms of transportation my family has used, I found mainly cars.
And these were mainly Studebakers.

Once upon a blog, I posted about the history of the family Studebaker. HERE. 

And in 2014 I posted about some of the cars where our family portraits frequently had a car "in the picture." Here.

So I'll try to not repost the same family photos...but some may sneak in.

First I want to acknowledge real gypsies...with some great photos that I didn't take.  I don't think the Rogers family ever was truly a wandering family.  But the urge to see new sights, to live in new places, and to have new adventures is deep in our blood.


The Reading type of wagon at Barnet, Hertz, 1921
Bow top wagon 1912

Heron family vardo, 1911

My ancestors did travel, from Europe to the east coast of America to Tennessee, then to Texas.  My own family then moved to Missouri, and since then I've moved from one place to another all my life.  I'm working on sharing more photos of those homes with you, in manageable doses.

More cars, so lets start with the current dear old Toy Yoda...a 1996 Corolla. It has over 175,000 miles on it, and keeps on truckin'.  That's probably my motto as well. I've owned it since 2000.

Before this, I drove a Subaru and a Ford. Before that a Pontiac which had been my fathers, and a Datsun.  But before that! Ah, for 11 years I drove a Chevy Open Road conversion van.


This is when I was a true gypsy. I had a manual typewriter, which my oldest son is here depicted trying out.  I tried to write a journal of our journey of 10,000 miles over the 3 months of summer vacation. I wasn't entirely successful. (I posted a bit about this vehicle in my post about my various residences...HERE)


Before the van, I drove a yellow Ford for about a year...as my half of a divorce.  My husband and I had a Mustang before that, and a Chevy, and a Rambler, and even an MG.

I actually didn't own any cars on my own until I got married.  Our first car was a little Ford Fairlane.


But while I lived with my parents, that's the Studebaker family.  However, they had at least one Plymouth, as shown above with my sister in a pretty dancing dress. And after I left home they had different kinds of cars.

But let's fast forward to some other cars, more recently.


My oldest son, all grown up and his daughter playing with one of those race cars at an amusement park.


She even got to drive a car herself, years before she was old enough to get her license this year.

 When my grandchildren visited me, they weren't interested in walking up to the tallest peek in the eastern US, (Mt. Mitchell).  They sat in the rental car and waited for me and their dad.  Somehow these Floridian children have little interest in the great outdoors!


However, they do like nice cars.
Here's my grandson with his high school graduation present, a Mustang.


And I'll finish this post with a familiar scene that happens here in Black Mountain frequently.
I'm sharing this post with Sepia Saturday this week.  Come on over there and see what other people have come up with about older means of transportation.

Today's Quote:


The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
-Pablo Picasso



12 comments:

  1. my favorite car ever was a used MG that i had for a few years in college. but i'd really like a gypsy vardo...

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  2. When my Dad was little in East Tennessee they had a mule and a wagon. He was born in 1904 so there were soon to be cars and model T trucks around but there were not good enough roads for them back in the mountains

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    1. Somewhere I have a pic of my dad changing the tube in a tire for a Model A Ford (I think) and back then those tires didn't last very long. In Texas they also didn't have real roads for ages!

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  3. I learned to drive in my folks' 1955 turquoise Ford Country Squire station wagon with automatic shift. Then they bought a white 1961 Country Squire which I also drove. When I married, my husband owned a red Karmann Ghia with 4-on-the-floor shifting. Took a while, but I mastered it! From there we went to a light yellow Datson station wagon, a 1974 brown Ford Maverick sedan, a 1982 silver Honda Accord, a 1990 bright red Subaru Legacy wagon, a 2001 white Subaru Legacy wagon, and finally - to date - a wine red 2009 Subaru Forester. As for being a gypsy of a sort, I am now living in my 12th home - having married a U.S. Forest Service forester, we moved around a bit as he was transferred from here to there. And btw, the moment I saw it, I recognized that green & white conversion van from a past post. Kind of like revisiting a friend met once upon a time. :)

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    1. So cool to hear all the colors and models of cars in your life! Glad you recognized the Open Road van...there aren't any of them out on the road any more!

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  4. Gypsies knew how to build a great wagon! Who wouldn't want to be a gypsy if it meant having such a cute wagon? I grew up in a Ford family, so it felt odd to marry into a Chevy family.

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    1. Yep, I knew the switch to another brand was difficult at times! Even if you got the wrong kind of catsup!

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  5. I liked in particular your vintage photographs of the gypsy caravans - we don't often see those.

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    1. Thanks, I think they were from a site I googled one day. Wish I'd kept the info.

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  6. I see Sue and I both call them ‘caravans’ but whatever they’re called, they are splendid vehicles. Didn’t Mr Toad, from The Wind in the Willows, fall in love with one?............until he spied a motor car!

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  7. Love that photograph of your sister in her dancing dress, ready to party!

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Thanks for your comments...