Earlier today on Jake's thread, I learned a bit about the Severson Cabinet Company. I have 3 photos of theirs and darned proud to have them now that I know a bit.
Ray has kindly granted me permission to post these old photos. How old are they?
The Speedster.
The Open Express
The Depot Hack
These are pics of older photos that I have.
Got these with the paperwork for a T. Beautiful photos.
What have you?
Photos?
Experience with the real thing? Have a Severson body (I know some of you do)?
Tell it/ show it here if you would...
Duey, I have those same three photos. Sometime way back in the 1980s I requested their catalog. This was back in the "snail mail" days. I got their catalog, price list, and those three photos. Im not sure if I still have the catalog or not. But I do still have the photos. If I can find the catalog (not likely) Ill post it here. Donnie Brown ...
I was building a T with an old farmer neighbor. It's a long story, but we ordered and got a Syverson exprss body. Ur was REAL nice. But right after this, we found out Rootlieb was building '13 Touring bodies,so we ordered one of those and built a '13 touring. Since this project was to replace the '14 touring that he inherited from his dad and sold about 1960.This old fellows name was Homer. Drafted well before Pearl Harbor. He was on the second troopship out of New York harbor. Was all over North Africa chasing Rommel. Got hit on Sicily. Three months hospital. Then Pacific theatre. Combat engineer. New Guinea, Tinian,Saipan,Philipeans.Then waiting off the coast of Japan to go in. Finally, after all these years, he gets to come home. While he was in the Army, his dad had died and his mom remarried. ANYWAY, as he was approaching the farm he had grown up on, the FIRST thing he sees is his Model T sitting out in the cattle lot, manure up to the hubs and A GOAT standing on the back seat. His step dad put that old junk outside while the owner was away. I asked what he did to his step-dad. He said . "I didn't say nothing to him. I just beat the livin'shit outta him. I took him out to the cattle lot, and we put my Model T where it belonged He didn't hang around long after that. I just had to tell that story.
I told my wife your story, Jim. She said she did not understand why anyone
would do that. I said "Do what?" "Get violent like that" she replied. I did not
even try to explain.
My old man was violent with us kids for years and it all ended in a similar
eruption when he jumped on a girlfriend of mine with a surly bunch of insults.
It had happened before and he had been warned. It did not end well for him
and he finally understood what "pushback" looked like. Wish I had done it years
before, but his 6'4", 220lb. frame was a bit much for me until I got a little larger
and learned some OT/DT's.
No, probably not explainable to some. Going to war, being in the worst combat possible. Your father dying while you were away. Coming home with both German and Japanese shrapnel in your carcass. And some guy you've never seen before puts something out in the manure that represents a memory of your father. I would love to know where that original '14 is. That car never sat out overnight. It got oiled 'by the book'every Sunday afternoon.Even if it had not been driven that week.
I kick myself now for not writing Homers war experiences down. One is real special. Somewhere in the Pacific. Finally wherever he was, they got the area pretty secure, his outfit got sent to a rear area to get re-equipped and otherwise cleaned up. He was bearded and lousy and stinking. Was in line with other guys, same shape. There's several of them sharing the same bar of soap, and helping each other shave. When he and and one of the guys got some beard and jungle off themselves, they couldn't believe it. They were brothers. They had no idea where the other was in the war. I asked them why they didn't realize sooner they were brothers. They both said, "Hell, we wasn't lookin'for one another".What are the odds?
Jim E, THAT IS INCREDIBLE! And I do believe it.
Great stories Jim from one of the members of the greatest generation. If you haven't written down some of the ones you still remember -- I would recommend doing so. Or record them etc. As Dawson Trottman once said, "The faintest of ink is better than the best of memories."
One of the Syverson Brochures was posted by Phil Mino (Thank you Phil!) at: http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/29/7542.html It includes illustrations of many of the bodies and also some photos of a Delivery Car style body, truck cab. It did not show the Ominibus body which was also offered at one time, so there are other versions of that brochure. As a kid I often looked at the pictures and the price list and wondered if I would ever be old enough to have a real job so I could afford one of his bodies.
Respectfully submitted,
Hap l9l5 cut off
My grandfather and 5 of his brothers all served in WWII. Two were Navy. Both stationed in the Pacific. My grandfather's ship was coming into port in Hawaii (Not sure if it was Pearl or not), and he spotted his brother's ship already in port. The next day, he was able to get liberty and go find his brother, and visit for while. Not quite as dramatic as the other story, but still, it has to beat the odds that one would just happen upon his brother during the chaos of war, when all you knew was that he was stationed in the same hemisphere.
Hal
My relative's story about meeting in the Pacific is like this: Mail call on an island in the middle of nowhere was a guy standing on a 55 gallon drum and calling out the names on the letters. When he got to one name 2 guys from opposite sides of the crowd came forth and they suddenly realized that it was reunion for father (Sea-Bee building the airstrip) and son (Marine liberator of the island).
These stories are just too darned cool!
Thanks you guys. :-)