I've noticed across the years that for many of us, our garages, ostensibly for a place to keep our cars, are often filled with everything but the car. Sometimes people will even say, or admit, "my garage is all junked up." Others, like me, may be prone to say "I just don't have enough space for all my stuff."
It's not that I have a lot of valuable stuff, it's just stuff I hate to part with, even if I don't use it very often. Actually I'm doing pretty well right now, keeping at least one side of our two-car garage reserved for the car. For almost three years now, we have been able to park the car in the garage. March 18 will mark the anniversary. I think I'll ask my wife out to dinner to celebrate having the car in the garage. It is right nice, especially when we have snow and sleet and ice, to be able to get in the car and go, without having first to scrape the ice off the windshield.
During the 1940s on the farm, we had no garage at all. In the winter, Dad always parked the car up close to the south side of the house, thinking that might make it start better on cold mornings. That may say something about how tight our house was, or was not. Of course, the south of the house was where the chimney was, so the car might get a little heat from that, and the house shielded the car from the cold north winds. But, the car was still outside in the weather.
Dad and Mom had bought our farm from Dad's brother in 1943, and for several years Dad was occupied with the farm buildings, building a new hay barn, new chicken house, new brooder house and new farm fences. So, a garage for the car was not a priority. But when the brooder house was finished, he saw an opportunity to add a shed onto the side for the car. I was too small to be helping much, but I was interested in the project. I remember when Dad finished the shed, he went and got the car, our 1937 Chevy sedan, and started to drive it into its new place. But, he stopped, backed out, got out of the car, and said, "It won't go. It's too low for the radio antenna."
So, our car shed got turned into something else. At first, the harness and other regalia for the horses got moved to the "car shed." Occasionally the farm wagon might be backed in there. It became a place to store the peg-tooth harrow, and several plows and garden implements. Then Dad bought a new Case horse-drawn mower, and that got parked in the "car shed." Later there was a two-row corn planter, which also went in there. By that time, sometimes we were having to move three things out in order to get to the one we needed to use.
Not long after, since the "car shed that never was" had become basically a "catch-all," Dad decided to build a real garage near the house. So, finally, in 1948, we had a real garage for the car. I was 8 years old by then, and I remember helping Dad nail on the decking and the first asphalt shingles. Interestingly, two summers ago, in 2012, I had to re-roof this old garage. While replacing some bad sections in the decking, I rediscovered some nails that I had bent back in 1948 during that first effort as a carpenter and roofer. Before the 1950s, most garages were set off away from people's houses. Our 1948 garage was like that, separated from the house.
That separation of garage and house, I think, came from two conceptions. First, it was thought that since the garage was a place for keeping gasoline stored in cans for the car, as well as other flammable car-related fluids, that there would be less fire danger to have the garage out away from the house. The other consideration was that people in that time just didn't see an oily, smelly place like a garage as being part of a house. The thought was that just as the horse barn was supposed to be away from the house, so the place for the car should also be away from the house.
OK, so now we had a garage for the car. But, then, also in 1948 we bought our first tractor, a 1945 Ford-Ferguson. Once in a while, the tractor went into the garage to be worked on, or for implements to be repaired. The new tractor-mounted mower found a home in one corner of the garage. The shelves began to collect spare parts from the farm implements. We also traded cars in 1948, and now had a black 1947 Fleetline Chevrolet two-door sedan. At first, it competed pretty well with the tractor for the garage space, being a new car and all, but it slowly became a losing battle. The tractor actually spent more time in the garage than the car.
In 1953, we built our new house on the farm, and after it was completed, we added a carport onto the side of the garage. The carport actually tied the house together with the garage. This sort of tied in with the new 1950s idea that it would be very convenient to have the car stored in a structure attached to the house. That way, you don't have to wade the snow or brave the rain to get to the car and back to the house. So, finally, our car had a place it could claim as its own. That lasted about two years.
In 1956 we bought a new 1956 Chevy car, and the now old '47 had to "sit out" again. The old garage was no longer considered as a place for a car. While we built the new house, we made the garage into a place to live, kitchen with hot and cold running water in one corner, living room by the big door, beds in the back corners. But after the house was done, the garage became the farm shop, with no room for a car. Every five years, Dad used to clean out the shop/garage, which basically meant moving the stuff that had been in this corner over to that corner, and stuff on that shelf over to that other shelf. It was like inventorying your stuff. What was it? Bolts, hasps, brackets, buckets full of washers, pipe fittings, pieces left over from old machinery repairs, all the necessary stuff that you might need someday.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 03/05/2014