Back in the Roaring ‘20s travel was more leisurely and difficult. Roads were often impassable and air travel was only for the rich and intrepid. Most people took the train and, upon arrival, were likely to be transported to their hotel or resort in an open-air Ford Model T depot hack, the forerunner of the taxi and the modern Uber and Lyft services.
Fast forward to 2018 and the Village of Rio Ponderosa where Tom and Karen Marshall often have their restored 1921 Model T Ford depot hack parked in the front yard.
“My daddy was a Ford dealer in Manchester, Michigan. When I was a little kid, back in the mid-fifties, he loaded me up in the company wrecker and we drove to where barn had just burned down. Out from the basement came a burned Model T frame and engine,” Tom recalls. “It sat in the back of the dealership for five or six years while my daddy bought parts and made a replica of a depot hack. It was completed in the early sixties just in time for our town’s centennial celebration.”
No one was certain that the old Ford frame started as a depot hack. “The wooden body was completely burned away,” Tom says. “We got the year it was made from the engine serial number.”
Ford and other vehicle manufacturers often sold the frame and engine to dealers who hired local wagon makers, cabinet makers, or even funeral directors, to build a custom wooden body. Some became delivery trucks – often known as huxters – depot hacks or other work vehicles. As time went on the wooden depot hacks morphed into station wagons complete with ‘woody’ side panels.
Tom and Karen, who had known each other in high school, went off to college.
“We kind of lost touch with one another for a few years.”
Later, when they had reconnected and were dating Tom said one day, “Why don’t we get married?” Karen said ‘Yes!’ “We jumped on an airplane, flew to Las Vegas and got married.”
Eventually the couple owned three home improvement stores in Michigan and spent most of their time running the businesses with occasional visits to The Villages where Tom’s father had retired. Karen handled the accounting area. “The Chief Paperclip,” she laughs. While she says that the best part of the business was meeting and working with customers and vendors, she admits that Accounts Receivable was the hard part. “There were some long days just trying to collect the money.”
Tom and Karen were about to become Villagers, too.
“We were driving around in my daddy’s golf cart one day in 1998 and saw a for-sale-by-owner sign out in front of a house. The owner made us take our shoes off before we could come in. Before we left we had bought the house.”
One by one they sold their businesses and moved to The Villages in 2000. Karen worked in a jewelry store, became the caretaker for a lady who passed away last year, and later cared for her mother in Michigan. Tom worked summers in Michigan and they wintered in The Villages.
In The Villages they met members of the Tin Lizzies Club of North Central Florida and went to car shows with them.
“I was thinking, you know what? It would be kind of fun to get the old car out of storage,” Tom remembers.
In 2014, after adding a new roof, roll-up rain curtains and restored wheels, they moved their depot hack from Michigan to The Villages.
New hobbies often require special accommodations and the Marshall’s antique vehicle was no exception. It was too high for the garage door by two inches.
“Some people said that I should lower the roof of the vehicle. That’s not going to happen.!” He raised the garage door frame to get the depot hack inside.
These days Tom and Karen spend part of their time attending car shows and showing off their vehicle. Karen also leads a support group for Sjogren’s Syndrome.
“We’re always looking for speakers for the meetings,” she says. “Medical doctors, experts on exercise for people with disabilities, dentists – they’re all welcome. And we try to get the word out to people with Sjogren’s that we’re here to help.” She also belongs to Beta Sigma Phi service sorority and both are active MVP gym members.
Tom works with UPS during peak delivery seasons as a supervisor for The Villages golf cart delivery team. He has traded in golf for his real passion – softball.
“So, we’re looking forward to spending more time on the road with the car. We’ve already signed up for our winter Club tour down here in Florida,” Tom says. “There will be about 150 cars and over five days we will travel around 500 miles. We’re also signed up for the national Model T tour this July in Richmond, Indiana and we hope to get back to Michigan for a month to attend some events up there.”
One of the upgrades for this season will be an enclosed trailer for the depot hack. “This year the bugs and all the road debris and flying stones won’t take such a toll. It’ll be a luxury to put it in a portable garage when we’re done for the day.” They expect to take delivery in mid-March.
Every year the Tin Lizzie members take vehicles to an area elementary school. “The kid’s comments are like ‘Where’s the radio?’ and ‘Does it have air conditioning?’ It’s fun to show them the hand-operated windshield wipers,” Karen says. “Many people are amazed that our old cars still run.”
John W Prince is a writer and Villages resident. Learn more at www.GoMyStory.com.
