I was born in 1967 in South Bend, Indiana, and my parents brought me home from the hospital in my dad’s 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 coupe in Springtime Yellow.
Dad had only ever owned Fords — a ’63 Galaxie before this one, and before that a “’57 Ford Police Interceptor,” as he always called it. I loved some of the details of that ’66, especially the round interior lights inside the C pillar and the squarish taillights, which I still think are the coolest tail lights ever.
Mom hated the color. After some convincing on her part, my famously frugal father had it resprayed in a pale blue.
We lived on the south side of South Bend in a solidly working-class neighborhood of small, prefabricated homes built in the early 1950s to meet the deep housing shortage after World War II. It attracted young families. The place was overrun with children, and the parents all called it “Rabbit Hill.” Our street was indeed a hill, a steep one.
From about age three, I could tell you the year, make, and model of every car my neighbors drove. There was Mrs. Johnson’s turquoise 1968 Chevrolet Impala hardtop sedan across the street and her husband’s 1968 Pontiac Catalina coupe, which he parked out front and started every morning by coasting down the hill until he had built up enough momentum, and then letting the clutch out. The Bassets next door drove a pale blue 1966 Impala wagon. Mr. Denny had his 1968 Cadillac in a champagne color, and his wife her polar opposite car, an early 1970s VW Type 3 fastback in red. Mr. Batten had a red 1963 Ford Fairlane that “he ordered direct from the factory!” his son Darin proudly proclaimed. Mrs. Gish up the hill drove a flowing and elegant 1967 Buick LeSabre coupe in white with a red interior. Across the street was Mr. Graczyk and his silver 1970 Impala sedan. Mr. Dieu down the hill had a purple 1965 Ford Mustang. Mr. Wells even farther down the hill came home in his city police car every night.
Dad worked in a farm-equipment factory and Mom stayed home raising my younger brother and me. Dad’s family came from the hills of West Virginia. His father and a few of my uncles came to northern Indiana in the 1950s to find work; they were glad to get the construction and manufacturing jobs that were abundant then. When Dad finally opened up about his West Virginia childhood in his later years, I got a picture of considerable chaos and loss. His mother had died when he was four, and his father drove a truck, so his grandmother raised him. She loved him but didn’t want that burden. When my dad’s dad settled in South Bend, she sent Dad and his sister Karen straight up there to live. Then Karen died of cancer, and his father died in a construction accident.
Mom grew up the daughter of a mechanical engineer who designed train brakes and airplane landing gears. In her teens they lived in South Bend’s most prestigious downtown neighborhood. But her father was an alcoholic and neither of her parents were smart with money. Mom described a childhood of never answering the phone because it could be a bill collector, and of not wanting to bring friends to the house because she couldn’t count on her dad being sober.
My parents were determined to create a stable, traditional family. They managed it, but they did it out of fear and through control. My brother and I were better off than they had been. But the strong control began to chafe during our teenage years. By the time any of us saw the damage it was doing, it was too late.
Dad sold the Galaxie in 1973 and came home in a 1971 Chevy Impala Sport Coupe in white vinyl over a dark blue that could have been either Command Blue Iridescent or Bridgehampton Blue Iridescent — I don’t know for sure because there are no photos of our actual car. “Film and developing were expensive!” Mom said when I asked her why the heck there weren’t.
The main thing I remember about the Impala is the time I shut my brother’s fingers in the door. The other main thing I remember is it being in our driveway, hood up. Dad was always adjusting this or that to make the car run right. He told me later that there were problems with the vacuum lines that neither he nor his mechanic could ever sort. It’s why the Impala was the car Dad owned the shortest amount of time in his life — just a couple years.
Selling a car after such a short time was anathema to Dad. He liked to drive them for as long as the inevitable mounting repairs didn’t outweigh the cost of buying another used car. But the Impala was just too frustrating to keep.
Dad traded it in late 1975 on our family’s favorite car, a white-over-white 1974 AMC Matador, Oleg Cassini edition. What a stylish ride! We didn’t know or care that swoopy Coke-bottle styling was out and that our nation’s Broughamification was underway. We felt great riding around in that white whale.
Except in the summer. The car lacked air conditioning and had an all-black interior. Worse, in the center of each seat tuft was a brass button with the Oleg Cassini logo on it. On hot days, clad in shorts, those buttons would brand your legs.
The Matador came to us rust free, but within months rust started bubbling through the paint. The rust progressed rapidly, and after a couple years the bodysides featured several large holes. Dad issued my brother and me wet-or-dry sandpaper and buckets of water, and the three of us sanded the rust out. Then Dad took the Matador to the farm-equipment factory where he worked and welded in fresh steel to fill the holes. Off to a paint shop for a fresh coat of white. The car looked good, but only briefly. After another year, holes were starting to form in the body again.
By this time we’d outgrown our little house on Rabbit Hill and had moved into a much larger home in a nicer neighborhood. Mom and Dad would live there for 38 years. Unlike Rabbit Hill, there were essentially no other kids around, as the neighbors were mostly empty nesters. Several of them were thrilled to hire my brother and me to cut their grass and shovel their sidewalks, though. Good money, and we were glad to get it.
The new house gave Dad the space to build a basement workshop. He started doing small woodworking projects for fun. His best friend ran the art museum at Notre Dame, and soon Dad found himself building cabinets, pedestals, and benches for the museum as a side job. For decades, if you sat on a bench in a gallery there, it was one Dad built.
Dad’s cabinetmaking saved our family’s bacon in 1981 when the farm-equipment plant folded. South Bend is firmly in the Rust Belt, and manufacturing was more than in decline, it was in free fall. Dad picked up jobs, sometimes very good ones, in various area manufacturing plants. But none of them was stable for the long term. Dad kept the roof over our heads by building furniture, a great deal of it for Notre Dame.
The Matador wasn’t suited to hauling lumber, so Dad went van shopping. Trouble was, the van he bought had only front seats. Dad got a back seat from a junkyard and just leaned it against the side wall in back, unmounted. We rode around that way for several years. More than once when Dad took a turn too hard, the seat slid across the back of the van with us in it, and we banged our knees.
I got my first driving lesson in this van. I was utterly unprepared for its manual brakes and steering, which was extremely stiff. At least it had an automatic transmission.
We all came to call this van the Iron Maiden after some nighttime vandal sprayed the name of that heavy-metal band across the driver’s side in green paint. Dad drove it around that way for months before having it painted over.
By this time I was in high school. I learned German there and had become good enough at it that I was selected to spend the summer after my junior year in Germany on an exchange program. I still can’t believe that my dad found the money to send me. I’m still grateful. Not only did my trip massively deepen my German language skills, but it was also an early taste of freedom that I handled well.
Dad may have been content for his teenage sons to rattle around loose as he drove us around town in his van, but a 120-mile Interstate trip from South Bend to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport was something else again. He borrowed my grandparents’ car for the drive.
Having realized the downside of his van plan, while I was gone he bought a car and relegated the van to lumber duty. They surprised me at the airport with the new car. I’ll tell its story next time.
Thank you! I’m writing on this site now as typopete after a few years of comments on your blog site, which I found because of your stories on this site. This is a great story and your dad, like mine, was a woodworker.
Thank you for following my writing wherever I publish it!
My Dad traded in my older brother’s 1968 powder blue/blk vinyl roof Mustang on a 1969 Dodge Coronet. There were 2 reasons for this
1. My older brother was drafted 2. My younger brother and I were not fitting too well on the tiny rear seat. That Dodge was a pos. Within a year the front fenders began to rust clear through. My brother returned from the Army and immediately bought a banana yellow Dodge Charger. I remember it was all hood.
Same thing happened with the new Charger. Within a year or two the front fenders had rusted through. Those were the days when you bought a new car and immediately took it to Ziebart to have it get a sprayed on undercoat.
That last pic of you and the van with a glimpse of early ’80s Indiana license plate (why can’t Indiana pick ONE license plate design and stick with it!?!) has a very “Season 1 of Stranger Things” vibe.
As far as I know, Indiana’s legislature required a general re-issue of all license plates every three years from 1982-93 (prior to 1982, Indiana plates were replaced annually). The state was an early adopter of graphic plates, so a new graphic design hit the roads en masse every three years.
The legislature changed that life cycle to 5 years starting in 1994, and then for 2017 authorized the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to extend that to as long as 10 years (but I think the BMV settled on middle ground and opted for a 7-year cycle). I may have some of the details a bit off with this timeline, so anyone from Indiana, feel free to set the record straight.
The plate on the van was the 1982-84 issue – the first design of that three-year cycle.
Here’s my collection of Indiana plates from when my wife and I lived there (1977 is missing). Mine are on the left, hers are on the right. Before and after our marriage is obvious.
My favorite is the 1979 with the checkered flag.
Photo here.
One more thing about the van picture – sometimes great details lurk in the background, and I like the Montgomery Ward Auto Club sticker:
Yeah! That was on there when we bought it.
I’ve really enjoyed the changing designs over the years. A couple of them have been duds, but that’s just part of it.
Terrific article, and much I can relate to. Also, we have something in common: My parents also brought me home from the hospital (in 1973) in a Galaxie 500. A few years ago, my sister came across this picture that my dad took of the hospital nurse handing two-day-old me to my mom in the Galaxie’s passenger seat. Never thought I’d have a picture of my first car ride.
The Galaxie was originally my grandfather’s. He had a tough life – a difficult childhood, immigrating to the US as a young man, and working long, challenging hours for the next several decades. In his early 60s, he was able to retire, and was able to move with my grandmother to a nicer neighborhood, and also to buy the Galaxie, which was his first nice car. He died two years later. (That story of him dying shortly after being able to relax and enjoy life for the first time has always haunted me.)
My mom drove the Galaxie until about 1975 or ’76, when it was destroyed by a drunk driver who hit it while it was parked in front of our house. That accident and its ensuing chaos is my earliest childhood memory that I can still recall.
And as an amusing side-note, when I showed this picture to my daughters, they were amazed that nurses actually once wore those kinds of uniforms. They’d assumed those uniforms were only made up for old TV shows, like Emergency.
What an awesome photo and you are lucky to have it. Wish I’d thought of it for my kids when we brought them home.
I was very familiar with those nursing uniforms, with both my mother and my grandma being working nurses in that era.
Calling Nurse Ratched
Ed from NY. Thanks for sharing amazing story. May God blessed you and family and the Indiana State
Amen. I have to admitted those cars was pure metal. I knew some one in Puerto Rico that had a 77′ n0va in green.he give me a ride from school. It reminded me of those days. God bless. Happy Holiday dear…
Very interesting, very touching story. Thank you.
Jim, did your father use a maker’s mark on the pieces he built for Notre Dame? I’ve been there several times, and sat on a few benches but I always wonder if it’s one of his.
My childhood identification of the neighborhood cars was similar to yours, but in the rural area I first lived in derelict cars often sat in driveways for months or years. This led to a lot of scheming on my part: Hmm Mr. Rankin across the road isn’t driving his 68 Bonneville anymore, how can I get my hands on that and put it behind our garage?
My maternal grandfather was an engineer too, very penny wise but pound foolish. One of the things that attracted my mother to my father was the lack of drama in his family. My other grandfather was a humble carpenter, but somehow there were always enough funds for the essentials, and no fighting about money.
I believe he did, now that you mention it. I think he thought of that after a few years, so his earliest pieces won’t have the mark.
Terrific pictures and a great story!
Out of curiosity, were these pictures on prints or slides? The colors are outstanding, so I’m inclined to think these had been slides. I ask due to just becoming the keeper of over 1,100 slides (a rough estimate based upon 15 mostly full carousels) and there are some really good ones that would be good to feature here. Also, if these were slides, what method did you use for conversion to scans? I’m loaded with questions; let me know if email might be better.
I’m looking forward to seeing what else you will be bringing to share.
These are all print or negative scans. The first photo is from a Polaroid print!
I have done slide scans — we got my wife’s mother’s slides when she died. I have a flatbed scanner that has the ability to scan transparencies (negatives and slides). Since then I’ve bought a dedicated 35mm scanner for negs and slides.I use a software tool called VueScan to interact with that scanner. It does really nice work and, in the grand scheme, isn’t that expensive.
https://blog.jimgrey.net/2022/02/14/scanning-old-color-slides-with-the-plustek-opticfilm-8100i-se/
Excellent story Jim.
Did anyone ever ask Mr. Johnson why he pop started his Pontiac every morning? It was probably one of those “just because I can” things, but it seems like it could also be one of those things that people do under some kind of misguided theory about why it’s “better” to do something in the way that they’ve chosen. Not using the starter, well, that’s a new one for me.
I love the 1974 Matador. It’s a shame about the rust, but that’s a sharp car in its Oleg Cassini edition guise. I can’t say why, but that 1970s thing about issuing “designer” editions of cars has always fascinated me. I was probably just at the right age in the early/mid 1970s to be captivated by cross-marketing. Someone who designed fancy suits (etc) AND cars???? (I wouldn’t have really known the difference) That blew my mind.
Mr. Johnson probably started his Catalina that way because he could, as you guessed. I was so young I never would have thought to ask him why!
I wash I had the photos to go along with my youth .
Your story is nice and well told .
-Nate
Thanks Nate! This is the second time I’m telling it here — I wrote my COAL series the first time in 2012-13. I wanted a do-over because I wanted this time to tell more of the story of my life through the cars. I’m also a better writer now. And I’ve owned a lot more cars in the intervening years!
Glad to see you back with this closer look at your early years.
I’m a bit perplexed by the two pictures of your parents, as they look so much older in the top picture and so much younger holding you and your brother. Since you came home in the ’66, it would seem that these two photos would have to be from roughly the same era. Oh; the younger one is your mom; at first I thought the other one was; who is he? Grandma? Still, your dad looks quite a bit older in that photo.
I set up an informal year aboard for my older son in his junior year, in Innsbruck. One of my cousins was a teacher at a high school and said to just send him over; they would take him. And another cousin offered a place to live. Turns out they had a superb fencing program and he was a fencer; an unanticipated boon. He loved that year in Austria; he could drink legally at age 16!
I should have explained in the text. The first pic is my mom and _her_ parents leaning on the hood of the Galaxie! My father isn’t pictured because he was the photographer.
I am older now than my grandparents were then.
What a great thing you did for your son.
I’m glad for the chance to do my COAL again. I think it’s a much stronger series this time.
Aha! That explains it. I’ve added a caption as it rather needs one.
“My parents were determined to create a stable, traditional family. They managed it, but they did it out of fear and through control” – oh, the things I could say. They (well, mostly my father) were generous on the car end, I have to give them that.
Yeah, that paragraph is doing a LOT of work. I wanted to tell my life story through the cars, but I didn’t want this to be a confessional.
I completely get your early devotion to the 66 Galaxie. When I was a kid, I considered that car close to stylistic perfection – especially those great taillights. The taillights on my father’s 66 Country Squire weren’t bad, though. I also loved the “cold” light that would illuminate on the dash right after Dad started the car in the morning. As for your car’s yellow paint, I am on your mother’s team. 🙂
I don’t think I have ever known anyone who owned one of those swoopy Matadors, let alone the one with the Oleg Cassini miniature hide-branding accessories.
I am excited to read version 2.0 of your COAL series!
I forgot all about the Cold light!
The only thing about the 66 that didn’t work for me was how they tried to give it a coke-bottle side profile. Looked tacked on. Otherwise, this was one incredibly handsome car.
Jim, I told you on your blog about all the old family pictures I have back to 1900. Only three, that I have seen so far, have any cars in the pictures. This one you could say maybe 1958, based on the cars, somewhere around Throggs Neck which was the boonies in 1935. Just noticed that the photo is a scan of a Polaroid B&W. Mother’s parents on left and Uncle on right.
Ooh a peel-apart Polaroid. Nice.
I remember my dad bringing home from work a “Polaroid Land Camera” back in the mid-1960s. It was somehow attached to his office (which would have been some municipal – Roanoke? – or state (VA) Department of Urban Planning at that time.) Anyhow, he shot a whole series of those pull-apart Polaroids of us kids and the dog that weekend (I have scans as well as the originals that have lasted quite well). But the important part is that I recall the little ChapStick thing that needed to be wiped over the photo after pulling apart. Also how the disposable part actually carried the negative image.
I was totally fascinated by that process.
Iron Maiden? EXCELLENT!!!
Lol. Turns out later I became a fan. Just bought tickets to see them in Chicago next year.
I grew up in northern Indiana in the 50’s and 60’s and enjoy reading your blog. This piece is a real treat. I too loved cars as a kid and could identify every make and model from a very young age.
I totally agree with you about the 1966 Ford taillights. A favorite aunt bought a new 66 LTD coupe in Raven Black over Vintage Burgundy. To this day it is one of my favorite cars in our family. The 66 was such a great refinement of the 65. I especially love the coupe with its concave rear window. Good cars, too – aunt kept hers for ten years.
I have a fair number of family photographs but I heard the same refrain about the cost of film and developing, a reason most of ours – from several family collections that came to me – are in black and white. I treasure each one and wish we had more photos of cars. I’ve looked through boxes and albums and cannot find one of the LTD.
I’m glad that my mom favored color. The only b/w family photos she had were ones her parents took.
Jim, this was so great. There’s always such great content here, but this entry made me turn off the TV for a few minutes to read it start to finish. I really enjoyed the vintage pictures and perspective on real life stuff. I felt like I was watching old family movies on Super 8. I look forward to your next entry.
You’re an excellent writer, so I really appreciate this compliment!
What a good read that was and the pictures enhance it. I’m in your age range and the sheer difference in the world our parents inhabited compared to those of us born in the 1960s. Plus the very short span between the end of WW2 and mid 60s where everything changed. I don’t recall 2005 looking that much different to now.
You’re spot on, the amount of change in the 20 years after WW II was intense.
You had a more interesting childhood than mine, although we are of a similar age. I grew up in the NYC suburbs so there were more imports and fewer trucks. One slight connection is my father in law was an electrical engineer designed railroad signals. My father was a lawyer so we lived a little higher on the hog, although our one and only Mercedes was secondhand.
Imports (beyond VW) didn’t start creeping in to the part of the country I lived in until the 80s.
I thought there would be a Studebaker in your story. There must have still been a lot of them running around the home town in the 60’s. Still interesting reading tho.
Those cars were far too used for Dad by the time I came around. And he just loved his Fords.
You are an excellent raconteur with plenty said laconically. Thanks for a tour of your family and the vehicles.
Thank you. As Strunk and White said, make every word tell.
My dad always said when one door closes another one opens, he was a great man…but a lousy cabinet maker.
Great story. If my daughters ever write a similar story about all the cars we went through…OMG. Back then to keep a car longer than two or three years were rare. I’ve had a few a year or less. Can’t wait till your next ins installment
I would like to thank Jim for a great article too, could be “Anywhere,USA”. If I may say about the 1st pic, smoking. In the mid 60s, I read over 50% of the population smoked. I may be a bit bold, but looks like the author was more than just a gleam, and mom smoked. 3 out 4 of my grandparents smoked, but luckily, my parents did not, so I never did either. My parents also took a LOT of slides, many with cars and campers from my youth, that my brother is slowly going through. Many images are the same as here, only different people. I remember it was a big deal when mom got the slides back from the drug store, we’d get together and all sit around and watch. Then, “PLINK”,oh, oh, bulb blew, shows over. Luckily my dad had another just in case.
Looking at these photos is great, but bittersweet. On one hand, it’s fun to see others doing the same thing as we did, but I sorely miss those times. Thanks for the memories,,
My whole family smoked in the 70s and 80s. When everybody came over the house would be filled with smoke.
While my parents did not smoke, practically everyone else they knew did. We may as well have, as 2nd hand smoke was all around us. I too remember smoke filled rooms or cars, and any gathering certainly had plenty of ash trays. And my mom was a nurse, you’d think she would have known, but 2nd hand smoke wasn’t even thought of then. My grandfather smoked cigars, something he took up in the late 30s because of several successful brother in laws that all smoked cigars. It was a sign of affluence and confidence then. He also drove a Packard. ‘Just don’t see smoking today, it almost looks out of place when you do, as if, “you are still smoking?” Back then a “power port” was used to light a cigarette.
Always love a story from Jim Grey. Thank you and looking forward to your next entry.
Enjoyed your article. The riding around in the van with an unmounted back seat definitely rings bells. This was normal. It’s a seat. Watch your knees. No problem.
I’ve loved cars all of My life and My father had a successful business and traded frequently! The car He had I wish I had was his 82′ Bill Blass Mark Six!! That car was Black on Black with real wire wheels! It was the first car to feature a fake convertible top! Convertibles more or less where banished in 1970s America but people yearned for the rag top esthetic and Lincoln obliged! Other manufacturers would offer this feature, some looked cool others looked fool however that car will always hold a place in My heart!
Great article Jim, thanks for sharing. Brings back a lot of childhood memories. I was born in South Bend, In. In 1963, grew up on the central east side, graduated from Adam’s in 1981. My Mom stayed home and my Dad worked at one of South Bend ‘s MANY now defunct factories. He parked in the driveway by our one car garage because the garage was his workshop. After work he repaired peoples lawn mowers and snow blowers for extra money. He always drove a station wagon to haul things. and guess who was his assistant, relegated to scraping mower decks and sharpening blades. Curious, when your wife was a kid, did her parents drive a Studebaker ?