Friday's Photo: A Trip to Jones Beach in Daddy's New Buick - November 1937

My mother (right) was 5 years old in this photo, and her sister (left) was 4 years old.  
The car is an eight-cylinder Buick Special. 

Mom said that her parents, Edith Giddens and Claude Davis, purchased a new 1937 Buick with the last of my grandmother's money left from her inheritance. My grandfather did not know how to drive, but the man who sold the car to him taught him to drive it in a few sessions. My grandmother took lessons but never got her driver's license. 

Mom remembers visiting family in New Jersey and upstate New York in the car as well as a short trip to Connecticut and Rhode Island. They often took Sunday drives, but the rides were shorter and less frequent when gas was rationed during WWII.  

The back of the photo identifies this as November, and my mother later wrote 1937. The sign in the photo below confirms the year to be 1937. 

Betty (left) and Janet (right)

CENTRAL MALL

FOOD BARS AND COMFORT 

STATIONS IN WEST CENTRAL

MALL BUILDING OPEN

PARKING FREE UNTIL

MAY 30TH 1938

GAMES ARE OPEN DAILY

CHARGES ON SATURDAYS

SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS

OTHER DAYS FREE

FREE ROLLER SKATING DAILY

I easily recognized the above photo as Jones Beach due to the wooden structure around the base of a flagpole I remember from my childhood. My brother and I had a similar photo taken in 1963 - click here to see it. 

The following photos were taken at or about the same time. 

My grandfather sold the car when my mother was in college, but both girls did practice driving it. Mom said he purchased a used Packard. My grandfather's last car was a 1964 Buick LeSabre - the one I drove in high school.  

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Diana

© 2023 

Photos of the Davis family and the Buick; scanned images, from the privately held photo collection of E. M. Bryan, Virginia Beach, VA, 2023.