I’ve done a couple of galleries with families posing with that other important household member, the car. It’s been a few months since I featured one such gallery, and I feel is a good moment to revisit the subject. So once again, a serving of images with families and their rides.
Understandably, having no backstory on these photos, we can assume several scenarios with these images. Some feature nuclear families, and large ones at that. A few include other relatives, and on some, maybe a friend or visitor. But whatever the story may be behind them, each image is a nice reflection of those long-gone days.
Related CC viewing:
Vintage Snapshots: Mom, Dad, Jr. And Mr. Wheels — A Gallery Of Cars And Families
Vintage Snapshots: A Gallery Of Family Rides
Great collection of Americana! Thanks.
Definitely! These are great shots.
The people with the ’56 Plymouth Belvedere at the beach seem like the Fun Family. With many of the others, I can just envision they all start bickering as soon as the shutter stops. I remember those days well.
They went for a spiffy Belvedere with a V8. No poverty spec Plaza for them!
Looks like a ’55 Olds in #1.
Now we know why the British royals rework photos of their kids. There’s always one grimacing or looking the wrong way. I remember Dad always made us face the sun, so there was plenty of squinting.
Pretty close Ralph! The Olds is a `54 98 DeLuxe Holiday coupe.
We had a ’56 Holiday 88 4 door until 1992, and it was very close but simpler. Its dark blue half would fade like this until I waxed it again.
No, those are definitely 1955 tail lights. No, I didn’t remember that but a little checking at oldcarbrochures refreshed my memory.
Thank you. I did remember the indentations on the side of the taillights on my aunt’s new 55 that were missing on the 54. If the front of the car were shown the face of the 55 was distinctly different from the sad face of the 54.
This is a nice assortment, with plenty of peeks at local scenery and license plates to suggest who’s near home vs. who’s on vacation. I figure all the adults were old enough to have WWII-era memories, home front or otherwise.
Can someone at CC figure out *which* Bullock’s store that is? I’d be curious to know….
My first thought was Palm Springs but maybe somewhere north of LA? I’m sure Eric703 can tell us 😀
Thanks! Yes, it was Palm Springs. The address was 151 S. Palm Canyon Dr.
That building was opened in 1947, and has since been demolished.
👍
How does he do it? I know, you have no cars that need attention on a weekly basis to take up your time? However, I knew it was the greater Los Angeles region and also knew Eric703 would get it. How is that for insight?
Ha! We all have things we can do well: for example, you can rebuild engines, and I can research obscure historical tibdits. Your skill is far more useful in real life!
I knew it was that general area since Bullock’s, like many department stores of the era, were confined to one region. Except for Macys, department stores in North America have mostly vanished; discounters like Target and Walmart excepted.
I see two future engineers, paying more attention to rocks or toads than people.
I think that last photo is a fifties Plymouth wagon, and everyone in that picture looks a tad surly. The teen boy especially. In the words of John Mellencamp (nee Cougar) he “Scratches his head and does his best James Dean”
Grandma is in her element though.
I like the last shot of the family and their loaded station wagon. The tall boy in the cuffed jeans and t-shirt looks like he would rather be anywhere other than there.
I think the sun is hitting them in the eyes – squinting a bit. And the kid wants some oil in his hair and a pack of cigarettes tucked under the T’s sleeve. Not gonna happen in that family.
Fun pictures.
Look. Nearly every pic was with 4 to 6 people and not a single one needed some huge Suburban to haul everyone around.
Oh how I miss the good old days.
On the same line of thought: shot number 1. Mom, dad, five kids. Oldsmobile, so not poor. We can see the next door neighbor’s small house in the background, and can probably assume this family’s home is similar. A seven person family in what in today’s real estate market (here in Minnesota, anyway) would barely be considered a starter home…
I just checked Zillow on the house I grew up in and recalled all the kids on our block.
Five of the 1000′ foot houses had six kids in them.. One house had 5 kids. Four houses had 4 kids in each. The other houses had 1-3 kids in each. My siblings discussed this and figured out that there were 72 kids we knew on our block by their names, grades and all were between the ages of birth to high school.
All the kids had a father and a mother.
All the parents were between the ages of 21-51.
Two families were Black. Several spoke other languages, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Norwegian. The fathers were usually blue collar, some were local teachers.
All the houses were under $15,000 in 1968. They were all new. There was three styles in the same colors. We had to remember our house number or we’d go into the wrong house. Others marked their homes with a sign, flag or Dutch windmills. For many years, we always helped little ones who ran into our house, thinking they were home, calmed them when they discovered their mistake, took them by the hand and to their correct house. We almost always knew who they were too.
We were one block in a subdivision of about 20. So, I’d say that within a quarter mile there were 1500 school aged kids walking to school with us.
Rides were Ramblers, Chevys, Pontiacs, Fords, Oldsmobiles, VW Beetles and Vans, a few Mopar fans. Many worked at the Ford Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights and the Ford Torrence Avenue plant – (both still in operation), the International Harbor, Sherwyn Williams, Whiting, Allis Chalmers. Dads took home about $100 a week. All were high school graduates, plus. All were union.
Today the houses go on the market for $155,000 to $225,000. Lots of single moms relocated from the Chicago projects. Lots of seniors that can’t afford to move. Except for Ford – the other industrial plants are long gone.
We got my mom out twenty years ago and had to pay the village a moving fee of $500 to help maintain the abandoned properties where families once lived.
The “moving fee” is a new one for me.
I guess the village collected the fee upon closing of the property.
What will local government think of next as a tax or fee!!
$15K in 1968 = $138K today. So because of being in a non-hot market the houses there aren’t worth a lot more today, unlike some places where they might be multiples of that. My sister’s 1300 sq ft 1950s house in a very ordinary Van Nuys neighborhood was probably around the same and is now worth $915K.
$100 a week = $916, or about $47K a year.
Funny how the housing doesn’t explode in value when the economy dies, leaving those citizens who cannot afford to get out, and forced to be taxed by a desperate village government.
Also that $100 a week was TAKE HOME – after taxes, and all the assorted employment deductables.
Finally, the financial reason my dad worked the graveyard shift was to get an extra .10 a hour. That – and not having to deal with me and my siblings except on weekends.
Those kids were raised in the best country in it’s best time. In the history of mankind. I hope they enjoyed and took advantage of it.
Top Photo:
Change that to a ’54 Chevy BelAir and that would have been my Mom & Dad & five kids prior to me coming along.
Somewhere in the family archive, there’s a photo of a ’64 Chevy Impala wagon, Mom & Dad & seven kids. We were Catholic!! 🙂
Also, note the size of the fuse box on the house in the background. I would imagine screw in fuses. Based on the roof stacks, probably gas wall furnaces supplemented by the fire place.
Today, that fuse box couldn’t handle a Tesla home charger, let alone an electric stove.
My house was built in 1968 and also had screw in fuses. In 1996, the insurance company suggested that I rebuild the box with circuit breakers in order to maintain my homeowners. The fun of owning a home.
I haven’t seen “screw in fuses” in twenty five years..
That’s really late for fuses. My parent’s middle class tract house built in 1960 had circuit breakers. Their 1946 house had fuses. Both with 220V for electric stoves and dryers, but the 1946 house didn’t come with the dryer outlet which was installed ten years later.
(I don’t think my little history is of any particular note except for describing what was typical back then.)
Homes from the early postwar period had an odd different electrical panels I saw. The 1963 house I grew up in had a modern panel with 240V for central a/c and originally dryer, though gas was used for the furnace, stovetop, oven, and water heater; and we ran a gas pipe to the dryer as it was cheaper to run then. But a later 1960 high-rise apartment I live in had only 7 120v breakers and no 240v at all which was insufficient; worse, they were made by the long-defunct Federal Pacific Electric whose breakers proved defective and don’t always trip when they should, a problem that’s gotten worse with age. A friend had a much older apartment with only 2 breakers; everything possible ran on gas. My brother had an apartment with 8 Edison-base fuses, a mixture of 10, 15, and 20 amp. A late 1950s quadplex I lived in had a modern-style electric panel with a single 240v breaker, yet still used knob-and-tube wiring.
Nice pictures all .
None of the old pictures I’ve seen from my family back then looked as good .
-Nate
It looks almost like everyone else has left town. lol The home to the left, has a ‘FOR SALE’ sign by the door. As a kid, I remember seeing numerous homes in the 1970s, with that bright turquoise siding. Never realized it then, but makes sense such decor, would have roots solidly in the mid ’50’s.
Colors like that make it easy for delivery drivers to find your house. A turquoise house stands out. Trying to find the natural cedar shingle house with white trim on Cape Cod is much more challenging.
Excellent point! (and true)
First pic: FIVE kids and an Olds two door? Upon closer look, I think I see a 54 brown Chevy, possibly a station wagon?? That would make more sense!
Love the Rambler wagon. I grew up with a 1962 Rambler Cross Country Classic, that became my first car. I got it free if I could get it to run to save it from the salvage yard.
I went from clueless to novice mechanic in 3 months. I copied every page from the Chiltons Manual at our library.
I loved that car. Traveled everywhere, camped, fished, hunted, and it was a drive movie favorite! Lots of room and the front seat fully reclined!
My Dad bought 2 of them in a row, a ’61 bought in Compton, Ca, we briefly lived there then a ’63 probably bought in Pittsburgh PA. Both 6 cyl, automatic, both green. It was his first wagon, our primary car was a wagon up through 1984.
The ’63 was totalled outside our motel room preparing to move to Vermont in ’65.
The one in the photo looks to be a ’59 to me.
My dad had a 58 Olds super 88 2 door car
.off pink color..it’s was a dull off.light pink color..it’s my first picture on his cars..we were in Cookeville tenn..he grads from college in 58 and work later in 58..times was hard..he had 4 years in the navy by 1953.and a degree by 58..dad loved Oldsmobile cars..we had a 68 Vista.wagon and a 68 impala wagon to..with 4 kids….of course my first car in 1971…is a 66 ss chevelle of course..rjones
Those are the kind of cars that brought families to gather you don’t see that with newer cars.