MTFCA Forum

Simple in every sense of the word. Charming.

Great pic Rich! Yup...even "back then" young amorous couples needed to "steal away" for a little loving!
I assume the "triangle" dealt with two people and the car!!

Yup. I reckon that young lady will have to share her beau's affection with the flivver.
The "speedster" is a '13 or '14, special equipment, electrified headlights and accessory "snubbers". Its rear axle may have been changed out for a newer one.

A clearer version of that photo was previously posted on the forum years ago.

The car has Minnesota 1915-16-17 license plate 83542 which, according to my 1916 Minnesota Official State Automobile Directory, was registered to William Pearse, Jr., 275 Harriet Street, Winona, Minnesota.

Winona is on the Mississippi River and I believe the river is in the background of the photo.

Unfortunately, searching pre-phpBB3 MTFCA forums via Google has recently become impossible so I cannot find my previous post to see if I had posted additional information regarding the car or Mr. Pearse.

Thanks for that, Erik.

I did some logical Googling and the original photo is in the possession of the Winona County Historical Society.

Click on this link and you can pull up a higher resolution version of the photo. If you use the zoom feature in the left hand corner, you can see that it is a 1915-16-17 Minnesota license plate. According to the entry, the photo was taken in 1917 and the location was by the Mississippi River as I surmised.

https://collection.mndigital.org/catalo ... 161%2C1971

That's a very clean and fancy outfit that Myrtle is wearing which isn't conducive for riding in a very open and crappy car on a dirt road. Maybe Wm. Hearse, Jr. was the photographer and the cute couple arrived at the scene in a seperate conveyance.

Everything was going so well, until he realized his mistake of parking down wind from the nearby outhouse.

One thing leads to another and it's all very interesting

Husband and wife Ben and Myrtle Huntley were in show business - regional travelling shows and also filmmaking. Ben was also photographer. You can read about them here:

https://www.winonapost.com/winonas-film ... dbe74.html

Harvey Brandon, shown in the photo in the original post, was Myrtle's brother. The photo may be a still from one of the Huntley's films, most likely "The Romance of the Traveling Salesman" as Harvey is wearing the same outfit in other stills from the film.

Ben and Myrtle's son Howard donated a number of items to the Winona Historical Society. If you click on this link, you can see many of them.

https://collection.mndigital.org/catalo ... ley+Family

Here's a nice photo of Howard Huntley sitting on the running board of a Ford speedster - note the square-back bucket seats (probably home-made):

https://collection.mndigital.org/catalo ... 020%2C3130

Wonderful photo. I've been there a few times with my gal.
The rear frame crossmember indicates 1913 or earlier.
Thanks for finding it.
Rich

TWrenn wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 17, 2024 9:33 am

Great pic Rich! Yup...even "back then" young amorous couples needed to "steal away" for a little loving!
I assume the "triangle" dealt with two people and the car!!

Someone needed to take the Photograph!

"I assume the "triangle" dealt with two people and the car!!"
...or the three-point suspension.

I think she should hold out for a guy with a whole car.

Good call on the frame rear cross-member ! I'm tending toward 1913, as the dash seems to have holes for the windshield brackets, side lamp brackets, and side curtain fasteners typical of that year. I don't know how much change that is from 1912 or earlier.

Philip Lawrence wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:08 pm

I think she should hold out for a guy with a whole car.

I don’t know if this term had anything to do with Model T’s, but my Dad said that when a couple was going out parking, they called it “sparking” as in, “Wanna go sparking?”. Jim Patrick

Her Mother probably took the photo. Back then proper young ladies needed a chaperone and it was usually the young lady’s mother. Jim Patrick

Folks:

Read my previous posts and click on the links I provided.

The people in the photo are brother and sister - Myrtle (Brandon) Huntley and Harvey Brandon.

The photo was most likely taken by Myrtle Huntley's husband, Ben Huntley.

Maybe the camera was on time delay. The guy looks to be very craft.

Ahhh! The Good ol’ days. It may have been his last drive before shipping out for Europe to fight in the Great War, which the US entered in 1917. My Grandma, who was born in 1900 and was about the same age as the girl in the picture, lost a boyfriend to the war. Jim Patrick