Last week Carl Vance of near Slate Spring, took the 1916 Model T Ford from the shed and put it back into running order for the observance of his and his wife’s 50th wedding anniversary.
They celebrated their Golden Wedding Sunday, Dec. 19 by going to Spring Hill Church in the car, where they were married Dec. 18, 1921, and with an Open House at their Sunday afternoon. They went to church in the same car for their first wedding.
When Mr. Vance said he was going to get the car out and go to church in it, someone asked if he thought it would run. He said, “Well I don’t know why not, it would run when I put it in the shed.”
He put it there in 1927.
As Mr. Vance was tuning the car up, he found that it still had about a cup of oil in the crank shaft.
Mr. Vance’s father bought the car from Joab Spencer in Slate Spring when it was almost new. One part of the Model T Mr. Vance was showing off Sunday was its steamboat whistle. A loud–deep hoarse sound, Mr. Vance would blow the horn when he left his home to go pick up the future Mrs. Vance who lived about two miles down the road. She then would be ready when he got there.
During the seven year courtship, most of the time they would go to Spring Hill church where both have always been members. Mrs. Vance was the former Eunice Spencer.
After their marriage they moved into their present home about two miles east of Slate Spring, and they have lived there 48 years. Mr. Vance worked at Greenville for two years during World War II.
Mr. Vance asserted that the car doesn’t belong to him altogether. It was left to him and his three brothers by their father.
He said the longest trips the car ever made were once to Arkansas and once to Memphis. “It must have been a pretty good car though, because it never failed to bring me back,” he said.
Mr. and Mrs. Vance have two daughters, Mrs. Epsya Clanton of Slate Spring and Mrs. Otye Hitt of Tupelo. They also have five grandchildren.