Two Stories follow:

A Memoir - Cars, etc.

While trying to decrease the accumulation of material saved through the years, I found a bill of sale for my first car. It jogged my memory. I had spent about $50 for the first three cars purchased. This first car was purchased in Tallmans, NY, just east of Suffern on the road to Nyack; and my first drivers license was obtained at the county seat of New City.

My attention and livelihood at that time was held by Kanes Open, a 200 acre scout camp not far from the railroad station at Tallmans. A round trip ticket from NYC here cost only $1 for any Boy Scout, and they came by the hundreds on long weekends and during the summer.

These were depression years in the early thirties, and attempts to get a decent job fairly nil. An interview with an A T&T recruiting personnel at Middlebury in 1929 had led me to believe that I would start with A T&T upon graduation in 1930, and be offered a six month indoctrination and training course starting a career with A T&T.

After graduation and being told by A T&T that they were not taking on any new employees, and were letting some go, I tried selling Eureka Vacuum Cleaners in the Bronx. My Uncle Herbert, who was living on the north side of 33rd St., just east of 3rd Ave., let me stay with him while trying to find work.

Since he was the Scoutmaster of a troop meeting on 23rd St., he enlisted me, along with Guy Rowney, to assist him. Guy had been an assistant scoutmaster.

Among the recreational facilities provided by the Boy Scouts of Manhattan was the 200 acre scout camp pictured. This was a camp complete with a very large swimming pool, nature trails, a crafts shop, and materials needed to help provide accommodations for several hundred or more scouts and leaders over weekends or vacations. Our troop was putting up a cabin here at Kanes Open.

My attempt to sell vacuums sort of petered out after finally selling one all by myself. Several had been sold with the assistance of my supervisor but the job was not for me. So Guy and I volunteered to finish the cabin at Kanes Open that now had two sides in place.

This was in the early spring of 1931 while the weather was very cool at night and began to get comfortable around 10am. So , after a day's work ending at dusk, we put up canvas to cover as much of the unfinished portion of the cabin as possible. That, with the help of a fully loaded (with wood) pot bellied stove, kept us very cozy until the morning sun was strong enough to warm us up again.

We finished our work on the cabin around the start of summer, Guy insisting on walking across the top roof beam to be sure everything was secure before our troop came up to finish whatever roofing or siding remained to be done and to add the finishing touches.

The camp director was so impressed with out work that he offered me a position as assistant, which he obviously had cleared with the board of directors of the Boy Scouts of Manhattan. So we became the only two paid staff running Kanes Open.

It was shortly after this on one of my numerous trips to the railroad station to pick up and direct new groups of scouts to our camp that the aforementioned car was found for sale and purchased for $12.50. On being asked why so cheap, the owner said the front tires kept wearing out very fast. It was no wonder as they came to a point around 20 feet in front of the car. This was easily corrected and the car ran nicely with four good tires.

The tires or tubes occasionally had to be patched due to flats from transporting up to 20 scouts picked up at the railroad station. This practice was soon discontinued.

This 1924 Star served me well during the rest of the summer. In the fall an advertisement for a car auction near Suffern caught my attention. Upon arriving at the auction, the auctioneer said he would allow me $35 for my Star on any car I wanted to bid on. A Chevy sedan was finally put up, and after being assured that it had had only one owner, I bid up to $60 for it, and it was mine. This car, purchased with an additional $25, was so economical that it was driven for over two years at a cost of less than 2 cents a mile. This cost even included license plates, and came from detailed records kept during my ownership of the car.

In 1932 my position at Kanes Open was discontinued due to a lack of funds. The depression had really affected the income of the Boy Scouts of Manhattan and they had to cut back on numerous scout activities.

Returning to my mother's folks in Rye, NY, where I had graduated from High School, I took various jobs where obtainable. My Chevy had given me the best of service but was beginning to need attention, so I started looking for another bargain. Noting a Studebaker Victorian Sedan for sale, negotiations began. I finally persuaded the dealer to accept $15 plus my Chevy, this third car was acquired. Total cost of my first three cars - $52.50.

The Studebaker was used while working in several jobs, including gas stations, and finally in helping my Uncle Herbert set up a motorcycle shop in Eastontown, NJ, where I helped clean up and paint the two story shop. This car eventually needed new tires, brakes, and possibly other repairs. It was therefore disposed of.

Returning to Rye without a car, I looked for nearby work. My sturdy old bicycle was still there and a motor wheel was found to propel it; my means of transportation for a while. Trolley cars or walking were also available. Soon finding a job at the meat market around the corner, I became a delivery truck driver, as well as doing other chores. While delivering meat to rich customers in and around Rye, I was able to meet C.N. Edge, a member of the New York Stock Exchange. He had a gorgeous small estate on a point jutting into Long Island Sound. After walking through his complex ornate landscaping where allowances had been made for the falling shadows of almost every tree and shrub, I met him at the back door. He was waiting for meat ordered for lunch. We discussed his house and estate. He told me each room had been furnished with things from a different country. I asked him about work in NYC. He said he could use another person in his small office where he now had only a stock speculator and a lawyer-accountant. After we decided when I would start work, he called his office on a direct line to get directions for me - on a floor some twenty stories up on Exchange Place.

Working for a New York Stock Exchange firm was very interesting. Since this firm was small I did just about every clerical job as well as reading parts of the ticker tape over the direct wire to Mr. Edge. However this position with C. N. Edge & Co. only lated a few months due to the reforms put on the stock market by FDR. In fact, the national stock legislation put through brought our stock trading practically to a standstill. It was so slow that, the last week or so before I was let go, we asked our firm's runner on the stock exchange floor to come up to the office to be a fourth for bridge.

Commuting to NYC from Rye did not require a car, and I had no car at that time. A short walk was all that was necessary.

But a car was required when my next position as outside contact for General Electric Contracts Corporation was acquired. I found a second hand Chevy that had been used in the red clay area of a mid-south state. It must have been driven for miles in the clay as the red powder in every part of the car could never be completely washed out.

Covering part of Westchester County to start, in less than a year I was covering all of Westchester and the upper part of the Bronx. Areas up to Poughkeepsie and east to Bridgeport, CT were added later.

My work consisted of checking GE appliances on credit for window displays and floor plans, bringing up to date delinquent accounts, tracing skips, and getting new business. I also mailed in daily reports, and dictated letters in the main NYC office several days a month.

A car allowance of $6 a week plus 2 cents a mile helped me purchase my first new car, a 1939 Ford coupe, complete with radio, for $595. The weekly $6 then became $8, the stipend for a new car. Some weeks I would receive as much on my expense account as on my salary check.

About the time this new car was nearly paid for, I realized that this position had no future. Giving the firm four weeks notice, and after staying an extra week at their request, I left for Florida late in 1939.

My folks had retired to Sarasota and I wanted to spend some time with them. Finding that my two plus years with GECC and other references meant little in applying for work in Florida. I had to find a position where I could establish myself as a respectable citizen. A specialized service station finally hired me as a night sales and service watchman at $12 a week. This $12 for an eighty-four hour week (12 hours a day X 7) was less than half of what I had been making in my prior position. I was able to pay my folks the $7 a week needed for room and board, which left me a little to spend.

Pumping gas to the occasional customer was about the extent to which I worked. The commission promised for tire or other sales never materialized. When summer came, I made screens to snap into the open car windows of my Ford coupe to keep the mosquitoes out while I watched the service station. After six or more months and the heat of the summer subsiding a bit, I felt it was time to look for another job.

Having now established myself, several jobs or positions in 1940 and 1941 were obtained, each one better than the one before. The last one, before enlisting in the Air Corps, was superintendent of service at a Colliers Hotel, the tallest building in Sarasota at that time. I taught a state vocational course in "Uniformed Hotel Help" at $45 a week on the side. I helped place many students who took this course.

Another position required driving throughout central Florida where over 25,000 miles were put on a car in less than 5 months. This was for a firm in Tampa who gave me a new Studebaker Dictator to use, not only for business but for my own use on weekends or any time off. It had an overdrive which was extremely useful in covering the long coast to coast distances.

While I had this Studebaker my sister was using my 1939 Ford, which I had put in excellent shape while working at the specialized service station. Part of my time off had been used to take the motor completely apart, install new bearings and piston rings, and have the valves ground.

When I entered the Armed Forces December 31, 1941, I gave the newly conditioned Ford to my sister. After putting over 80,000 miles on my first new car, my use for it ended. This was after four second hand and two company cars.

Before enlisting, all four armed services were checked to try to ascertain where I would be of the most use. I selected the Air Corps, after turning down other options, such as taking charge of a large warehouse, at a much better starting rank. Going to work immediately in a finance office at MacDill Field in Tampa, I soon was fortunate enough to be placed on the initial roster of the Eighth Air Force, which had a very prominent part in the European Theatre of Operations.

Going overseas with the personnel department, and then spending most of my three years overseas at the Headquarters of the Eighth Air Force in Bushy Park, a half hour from London, gave me a feeling of accomplishment.

In 1945 we were given a 30 day leave after returning to the United States, and then asked to report at a base in preparation to go to the Western Theatre of Operations, but after only a month or so we were discharged.

Recuperating in Florida during the remaining fall and winter of 1945, I was able to use my parents' Ford. I worked at the John Ringling Hotel, open for guests from January 15 to March 15 in 1946. I came north after that and got work in NYC. I was working for a hotel and restaurant CPA firm when my future wife appeared on the horizon. We decided to get married and shortly thereafter I was offered a position with considerably more potential.

This was 1947. We were married June 25th. Frances Judge Kurzhals became Mrs. Conwell Worden Abbott. We were given a 1929 DeSoto by my father-in-law. This would be my fifth and last second hand car, as we had already put $25 down for a new Ford. No new cars were available after the war, and would not be until the factories had converted from making war needed materials to the peacetime construction of new automobiles. This took time.

We were very fortunate to have this 1929 DeSoto since our local Ford dealer, in accepting our $25 deposit, told us we were 125th on the list and he had no idea when deliveries would start.

Called "Sally," this old car had a lot of life left. After local use in early 1948, we took a trip to Virginia Beach, stopping overnight at Baltimore. During our weeks stay there, Sally needed attention. The mechanic we left her with for the day, we later found out, had driven Sally all around Virginia Beach showing her off. This really amused us.

In August of the same year we were on the newly finished Maine Turnpike, going so fast the speedometer, darkened with age, showed white. I believe we were up to 60 mph when we suddenly realized there were no facilities for 50 or more miles. Rather scary.

We went to visit my wife's cousin, who had been the youngest captain in the Merchant Marines during World War II, and his wife from South Africa. He had purchased and ran the largest excursion boat on Lake Sebago in Maine. We fully enjoyed their company and the beauties of that area as seen from the boat on its daily trip around the lake and its locks.

Many shorter trips were taken this year, such as one to Lake Wannaksink where I capsized a sailboat with its owner. This boat was easily righted. This trip was remembered specially since old Sally caught on fire while we were driving up there. My wife was sitting in the back seat because Joe, husband of the owner of the sailboat, was in front with me. As soon as I smelled the smoke and before the fire was seen coming up through the floorboards around the emergency brake, I swung off the road to a grassy spot. Fran, in the back seat, saw the fire coming up between Joe and me. I grabbed a fire extinguisher kept in a bracket by the drivers seat for just such an emergency, rolled under the car, and extinguished the fire. Joe, in the meantime, persuaded Fran to get out of the car. She had smelled smoke some time before this but we had convinced her that it must have been joe, who was smoking a pipe. Later we realized that the mechanic, working on our brakes just before this trip, had bent some metal just enough to rub against the brake lining. The lining had eventually caught on fire from the friction this caused.

With regret and the remembrance of many good times, we gave Sally to a cousin of Fran's when our 1949 Ford replaced her.