"1. Some years ago either you or Marge gave me a copy of a bill of sale
dated June 12, 1935 that indicated dad was purchasing a "New Dodge
Two Door Touring Sedan." The bill of sale also revealed that dad was trading in a "33 Ford Coupe."
"So...whenever Kathleen drags me into an antique furniture store, I always look for old copies of the Saturday Evening Post, Look Magazine, etc. in the hope that I will come across an ad for the exact car dad purchased 75 years ago. (I have come across ads for four-door models and for convertibles but not the two-door model he purchased. Marge says she thinks it was dark green but she's not certain. She says she is sure it had a rumble seat.) I want the ad because I want to frame the bill of sale with the ad.
"Dad's first wife, Margaret Kenny, who was pregnant and due in February died the previous Christmas Eve from Lobar Pneumonia. (Penicillin had been discovered but I suppose it was not yet available.) After the death of Margaret Kenny Stimmler, dad and Marge moved in with grandmother at 323 Roxborough Avenue. Marge says that it was a tough economic time during these Depression years and, at times, dad was out of work. She said sometimes all they had to eat for dinner was a hard-boiled egg from grandmother's kitchen. Before he went to work for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co, he worked various jobs including some kind of work on milk train that ran from Philadelphia to Reading..
"So, you ask, why am I telling you all of this? If you happen to come across an ad for a 1935 two door Dodge touring sedan, would you please purchase the magazine and I will reimburse you.
"Now I know what Mark is thinking, why don't you just look on e-bay. I'm too old to twitter, I don't have a facebook site and I can't figure out Craig's List. Like John Houseman on the old Smith Barney ads, I do things the old fashioned way; I look around antique furniture stores. E-bay is for young people like Rae Bordua and Jane Stimmler.
"2. In every antique furniture store I visit--and I visit a lot with Kathleen--I also look for the Packet Ship "Sully" but since Rae found Thomas Chambers' oil painting of the "Packet Ship Passing Castle Williams, New York Harbor" c. 1838-1845, I feel less urgency.
"Remember, next month on November 28--in addition to Gale's birthday--it is the 170th anniversary of the arrival of the Stimmlers/Stemmlers/Stimlers from Wilwisheim, France.
"Colin and Chad's great, great grandfather, John Stimmler, was on board the Sully when it landed in NYC on Nov 28th. Rae Bordua informs us that he was 9 years old at the time and has the same birthday as Chad. When he died in 1906 Rae said he was the oldest member of St John the Baptist parish in the Manayunk/ Roxborough section of Philadelphia.
"3. Did you see the October issue of Hemmings Motor News? There is a stunning color photo of a 1933 Pierce Arrow." [from a Oct. 1, 2009 e-mail]
"Dad's 1935 Dodge two door touring sedan
There is a photo of Margaret in her possession taken on Gerhart St. in Roxborough with that car in the background . . . about a 3/4 view of it. Ask her for a copy. That particular car absolutely, positively did NOT have a rumble seat. No sedan ever did. She is confusing it with a green 1926 Pontiac coupe that Dad bought, one of the first ever made by Pontiac. It did have a rumble seat and I have an old calendar around in our basement with a contemporary illustration of that one which I will gift to you if and when I can find it.
"I am going to the Hershey Antique Auto Show on October 8 where there will probably be 25 dealers (at least) in antique auto ads. I'll look for you. But you can also do the same in Hemmings Auto News. There is a section on vintage auto ads in that mag.
" Just Hardboiled Eggs in 1933 at Grandmother Stimmler's House
"Total baloney. According to Aunt Anita our grandfather was a very successful plumbing and heating contractor and business person before and during the Great Depression and was never out of food, work, nor money. Neither was our Uncle Joe nor Uncle Val nor Uncle John who worked steadily for Standard Oil, Land Title Bank and Trust, and Insurance Company of North America, respectively. Although some of his other sons (our uncles) were unemployed on occasion and he (our grandfather) was instrumental between 1930-31 in soliciting some bath and kitchen remodelling work from friends and business associates for example, done by our Uncles Jim, Gerald and Dad. Dad went to work for Metropoitan Life in 1931 and was never unemployed afterward. Save for coronary-related hospitalizations in the mid and late 1950s. Uncle Jim, with our grandmother's approbation and connivance, literally took over our grandfather's plumbing and heating business in 1932 when our grandfather turned 65. Meaning they moved his business desk and customer files out of grandfather Joseph's home office on Roxborough Ave and to Uncle Jim's house without our grandfather's knowledge and advanced permission. He was apparently quite upset at the time but grandmother Anna smoothed it over apparently. Or so Aunt Anita told me.
"There was a 'one egg' episode that I recall when we were living on Rochelle Ave in the late 1940s and I must have been 8 or 9 at the time,and when dad was apparently between insurance commission checks, and we really did have only one hard boiled egg to eat. When I inquired why, mom told me directly that our father was "too proud to ask for a temporary loan from his brothers". Scared the hell out of me at the time. That may be the episode Margaret was thinking of. But to the credit of our Uncle Jim, the very next day he and his wife our Aunt Lorraine arrived at our home unannounced with several bags of groceries. He was a very caring and compassionate man, Uncle Jim Stimmler (1903-1983), as was his wife, whom I always admired, and it brings tears to my eyes as I compose this.
"Spring Lake NJ Maintenance
"To keep busy and his finger in the trade, for a number of years after Uncle Jim took over his plumbing business, our grandfather Joseph worked part time pumping gas and doing minor auto repairs at Uncle Jim's Sun Oil service stations in Roxborough, and in summers worked at a huge hotel on the Atlantic Ocean in Spring Lake as a maintenance man. In those days he took a train to Spring Lake and stayed over for most of the week and came home on weekends. Gale and I have been there; the grand old hotel building is still there and it was converted to condos about 5 years ago after being vacant for 10+ years before. Spring Lake was then and still is a very upscale, high zoot resort.
"The Milk Train Story
"For a while when he was working as a surveyor for Martin Melody Construction Company on a job in Reading and also attending Drexel University at night for Civil Engineering, our father took the 4:30pm so called "Milk Train" from Reading where he was working at the time, to Philly to attend night classes at Drexel. In those days there were refrigerator cars they would load up in the late afternoon from area farmers who would bring the milk containers to the railroad siding. And then they would attach the refrigerator car to a passenger car run. Lionel made toy versions of those refrigerator cars in the 1930s and I have one. I don't want to leave you with the impression that dad rode in a cold refrigerator car. He rode in the passeger car section of the train that had refrigerator car(s) attached. As best I can recall from what he told me, dad attended Drexel for two years but never finished his degree. Probably helps explain his powerful obsession with all of us finishing college.
"Margaret Kenny Stimmler (1909-1934)
"Died from pneumonia, and not from an absence of penicillin, but physician neglect. Dr. John Hansel their family physician at the time, failed to answer repeated urgent calls to his home and office. It was Christmas Eve you see and he, and his wife who took the calls, apparently decided he wasn't answering patient calls that Holiday eve. Our father was understandably very bitter about Dr. Hansel afterward. Although our Aunt Anita, in her customary insensitivity and arrogance, continued not only to use him as a family physician, but invited him for lunch on occasion, for years afterward.
"Hope that is helpful family history." [from an Oct. 2, 2009 e-mail]
1948 hauling bricks to the dump from dismantling an old coal furnace in our house in Bala Cynwyd.
He subsequently traded it for a used 1939 gray Plymouth sedan. We didn't have that car very long...maybe
6 months of 1948/early 1949 ... and then he traded that for a used green '46 Plymouth sedan
and later in succession traded it for a new blue 1949 Pontiac fastback. I recall that the green
'46 Plymouth developed transmission problems (no forward gears; just reverse) and so he drove it
backwards down Lancaster Ave the day we traded it in. My job was to look out the rear windows and
alert him if any cars were coming out of the side streets as we made our way backwards to the dealership.
he worked out a deal to replace it with a new gray 1950 Pontiac two
door coupe with automatic transmission. He kept that until November of 1955 when he bought a new
1956 Chevy model 210 station wagon in the then very popular two-toned color scheme of turquoise
and white.
