Volume 8 , Issue 23

Vacations & Covered Wagons of 1950's...

This is the time of year that families pack their motorhomes (covered wagons) for summer vacations. We were looking through our old photos of the mid-1950's and found this photograph of a 1951 Plymouth Suburban Wagon that we used one summer to take a summer vacation to the Rockies. We think it might have been when the young girl in the picture was 14 years of age or so, but with no date on the photo its hard to state the exact date. Gene McGill is atop the roof of the Plymouth wagon, while his oldest daughter (Connie Jean) is pulling tight a rope of some sort along side the wagon. If you see Connie Jean, ask her how old she was in this old photo with the 1951 blue Plymouth Suburban Wagon.

We think that this blue '51 Plymouth wagon was the old blue station wagon that Vada (Paris) McGill traded in for a newer light blue Oldsmobile that she bought at an auto dealer in Waynoka, Oklahoma while Gene was on a fishing trip with his buddies. We have forgotten the year of that transaction, but Vada had come to the end of her road with that old (1951) Plymouth wagon which (we are told) should have come to the end of its road a year or two earlier. We did a web search through Google and found this likeness of our Plymouth wagon on the web of the another 1951 Plymouth suburban wagon on an old vintage car site. 1951 Plymouth suburban wagon. It looks similar to the '51 Plymouth wagon of ours with an almost identical same dent near the front, right fender.

Speaking of motorhomes and covered wagons, checkout this 1955 photo of our makeshift Pontiac station wagon with homemade matching teardrop trailer. Cooking supplies were stored in the backend with storage of tent, bedding and camping supplies stored inside this little trailer. This covered wagon was orangish and white and was used during the summer of '55 on our trip from northwest Oklahoma to the Yukon Territory of Alaska. We journeyed to Alaska with the six of us in this Pontiac station wagon and teardrop trailer rig in 1955, the year one of my sisters (Dorthy) turned 12. Seems to this NW Okie, that we ate a lot of doctored, "Dinty Moore Stew" on that Alaska trip in '55 -- something about "corn clam chowder" comes to mind, also. We left on our journey soon after school was out and did not return until September, a week or so after school had already started. This shy NW Okie remembers having to walk into a full classroom of Mrs. Van Pelts second grade class at Washington Elementary school -- scared to death. (We wonder if that is why this NW Okie doesn't like being late!) AND... We are reminded that the the reasons for the '55 summer long trip was that 1954 was a bad year for polio in Alva (Oklahoma) and they were expecting an even worse outbreak in 1955. Also, We spent the summer of 1954 at the ranch north of Waynoka to keep us away from the swimming pool and from other kids.

While we were in the Yukon Territory near Whitehorse and Dawson, Yukon Territory during the Summer of 1955, we took this photo of "The Yukoner" that had been sitting there for ... not sure how long after its last journey up the Yukon River. The name on the wheelhouse of this sternwheeler reads, "AKSALA" (ALASKA in reverse). It was the first boat up the Yukon river from whitehorse to Dawson. We wonder if the Yukoner is still setting in this same spot or has been restored or completely demolished. Whitehorse is capitol of Yukon Territory.
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