Life With Louise* - The Car

*Mary Louise Vaughan Dallis kept several photo albums and scrapbooks.  They were filled with family pictures and scenes of life in LaGrange, Georgia, between 1900-1935.

Out for a ride in Wallace's car, about 1917-1918

Louise included this picture of three of her sisters and her younger brother riding in a car identified as belonging to Wallace Clark.  Left to right, the group includes Charlotte Vaughan, unknown woman, Sue Brown Vaughan Clark (at the wheel), Clara Vaughan, unknown woman, and Calder Vaughan.

I've dated the photograph as between 1917-1918.  Sue Brown Vaughan had married Wallace Clark in 1917, the approximate date of the photo.  When this picture is enlarged, a ring is visible on Sue's left hand, probably either her engagement ring or her wedding bad.  Another help in estimating the date of the picture were the apparent ages of Charlotte and Calder.  Included in my Vaughan Family Archives is a letter Albert Thomas Vaughan, the older brother of the siblings, had written to his family at about this same time.  He was asking them to be very careful whenever they were riding in Wallace's car.  Heartfelt wishes to all from their big brother.

I'd spent time searching online trying to identify the make and model of the car but without much success.  Two web sites, John's Old Car Pictures and Early American Automobiles, both have hundreds of photographs of vintage automobiles, but I couldn't find one that seemed to match Wallace's car.  Finally, through facebook, I contacted a high school friend who restores vintage cars, asking for help in identifing the car the family was driving.  Within a few minutes my friend got back to me, identifying the car as a T Model Ford.  Going back to the two automobile web sites, I finally found several photographs of other T Model Fords that looked very much like Wallace's car.  Great how the Internet lets us span 95 years in just a few minutes.  

Now I've started wondering if Sue actually drove the car or if this was just a posed picture with friends and family seated in her husband's car.  Wonder if DMV records are available for searching for genealogical information?  As usual, an answer to one question brings more questions to be answered.  Why am I not surprised?