My girl.

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Dollisdad]

[Southfork Creek]

I love the last photo showing the Small Pox warning sign on the car!

[Wayne Sheldon]

I wonder why the "Small Pox" warning sign on the car? Was it some sort of joke? I have before seen or heard of people doing that for odd reasons. Frankly it is not something to be joked about. Or, perhaps they had a local scare and were temporarily quarantined by their doctor out of fear that they might have been exposed to it. There were several localized smallpox scares during the 1910s. They were relatively minor, and largely forgotten today with all the overshadowing by the "Great War" and the flu pandemic that decade. Remember that the digging of the Panama Canal was still recent memory at that time, and workers on that canal were literally plagued by smallpox leading to the discovery that mosquitoes spread the disease and efforts to eradicate mosquitoes in the Panama area.
Perhaps they were temporarily quarantined, and took a picture to remember the time and that they were actually doing fine.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Picture number five, the truck with all the kids on it, is particularly interesting. It appears to be some unusual early form-a-truck. The horn button coupled with the fenders suggest it is likely a 1917. The rear wheels and springs being huge and longitudinal suggest that it is quite heavy duty. However, what can be seen of the differential housing suggest maybe otherwise. I wonder if it is a solid axle with the wheels on it, and a smaller driving differential running through a cogwheel gear arrangement?
The Graham Brothers, well before building trucks to sell through Dodge Brothers' dealers, manufactured early Form-a-truck kits to fit practically any automobile chassis. Although the only good pictures I have do not show such a cogwheel drive, and several images do show chain drive to the rear wheels, they offered a variety of kits and designs. The wheels and springs on this truck look very much like the ones on a few of the images in the Graham Brothers Legacy book. So maybe?
Some years ago, I did see photos of a cogwheel drive kit on a model T chassis. I wish I could find it.


Didn't the Smith Form-a-truck use the model T's rear end with chain drive sprockets on the rear hubs? This truck's rear end does not appear to the standard model T rear end.