I simply love looking at old cars and trucks from the earlier half of the last century. Or even from the 50s and 60s. Car shows are always a lot of fun when I get to stick my head inside a vintage automobile that has been taken such wonderful care of and/or refurbished by its owner. Just like with movies and TV shows that take place in a time many, many, many years and decades ago. The production crews on those films bring together vintage cars and trucks and motorcycles from whatever era the movie is supposed to represent. Picture in your mind Ryan O'Neil and his young daughter Tatum in the film "Paper Moon," Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman stealing a variety of vintage cars from the 1930s in "Bonnie And Clyde," and many old automobiles from the early decades of the America depicted in Frances Ford Coppola's first two "Godfather" movies. That is what I think of when I look at these old photos from my family picture collections. I wonder what it would have been like to have lived during that time. I have no idea who the little girl is in the picture above. I assume she is related to me somehow but could not swear to it. That's a classic old car in the photo though, isn't it? And I love that old car pictured below. That is my wife's parents, Dorothy and Omer Hall, in a photo taken in 1945. I assume that was my father-in-law's car that he drove shortly after he got out of the military at the conclusion of World War II. But, again, I really have no way of knowing. There is absolutely nothing written on the back of the photo. But, pictured in this blog entry, are several vintage cars from the Gupton's and Hall's family photo collections for your viewing pleasure. And, oh yea, in the photo at left near the top of this blog, that's me around 1959 or maybe 1960 at my family's home in Markham, Texas, shown driving my very first car. What a great Christmas that was!
Can anyone viewing my blog enlighten me as to what kind of cars these are in the three lower photos? Are they Model T's or Model A's? I assume they are Fords. They are from my grandparents, S.M. and Eula Gupton's photo collection, and none of these pictures were labeled or identified in anyway. I can still remember my mother telling me decades ago that she wanted to sit down one day and write on the backs of all of her photos so future generations of Guptons and Gieslers would know who each person was in all of their old pictures. But now she and my father have both joined their parents in the Hereafter . . . and still none of those old photos have been labeled. If any of my relatives viewing this blog can tell me who the people are in the photos and/or who the vintage automobiles belonged to, I encourage you to do so. You can either add a comment at the bottom of this blog or notify me by email or the next time we see each other.
The picture below was taken in 1949 of my father, Rex Gupton, washing his car in the early days of his marriage to my mother. The same car may be one of the two in the background in the photo above of my uncle, S.D. Gupton, my Dad's youngest brother, photographed trimming the limbs in the backyard on one of his parents' trees. The photos of my father and his brother S.D. were more than likely taken the same day because both photos have "September, 1949" printed on the back. Can anyone ID these old automobiles from the 1940s?
There is a vintage automobile in the background of the photo at right. I wonder who it belonged to? This photo of my uncle, Howard Robert Giesler, was taken around 1949 or 1950 when my mother's younger brother was home on leave from the U.S. Army during the Korean War. It might have belonged to my uncle and aunt, Jack and Yvonne Broadway, since their son Randy was in several of the photos taken of my uncle "Hob" Giesler that day at his mother's home in East Columbia.
My guess is that Freeport is where the photo at left was taken. That's my cousin, Randy Broadway, when he was a little boy standing across the street from an old car whose make and model I am ignorant of. If you can identify it, comment at the bottom of this blog entry. Randy, the eldest son of my mother's older sister Yvonne Giesler Broadway, posed for this shot in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Do any of you vintage automobile enthusiasts out there know what kind of cars are in the photos above and below? If so add a comment to the bottom of this blog entry or email me at tracyg@embarqmail.com and let me know. The summer of '46 was the setting for the above photo. That's my godfather, Kirby Anthony Fontenot, with another woman's arms draped around his shoulders as his wife (my father's only sister) Ruby Nell Gupton Fontenot stands within striking distance. My Aunt Ruby is the fifth woman from the right, standing about in the center of the picture. If any of my older family members can identify anybody else in the photo above please do so. And that's my Dad's sister and mother in the lower photo. Aunt Ruby, left, and her mother, Eula Meadows Gupton, appear to be posing in front of a Naval battleship. I love this shot of all the old cars parked in front of the battleship. The battleship picture was developed in April of 1950.
I don't know what make or year model the car in the background is in the photo above. The photo was taken in 1958 in my grandparents' backyard in West Columbia. That's me in the arms of my godmother as my big brother Cody and I pose for Mama's camera with my Dad's sister, Ruby Nell Fontenot. See, I wasn't always old, wrinkled and ugly. I started out as a cute little kid!
The first "hot rod" my big brother Cody Gupton fell head over heels in love with, according to the notes jotted down on the back of this photo by our mother Verna, at a Houston-area carnival in 1954. "Couldn't get him out of ol' No. 2," Mama wrote on the photo. She took my brother to the carnival on a visit to Bellaire with my father's sister Ruby Nell and her husband, Kirby Fontenot.
