Continental traveler

A yellowed but intact envelope from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Highways was marked, in big, loopy, penciled writing, “Important Don’t Destroy.” Inside was a very important looking document indeed–a title for a 1922 Buick sedan, registered to John J. and Beulah Patterson of East Waterford, Pennsylvania. It’s dated 11-24-23.

JJ Patterson was the brother of Grace Patterson Henry, my great great grandmother. JJ and his wife, Beulah Pannebaker Patterson, had no children and lived in a beautiful, rambling house in East Waterford that became the home of his nephew, my great grandfather John Patterson Henry, and wife Margaret Adam Henry, my great grandmother. The Pannebakers and the Pattersons were East Waterford business owners, and plenty of Pannebaker and Patterson papers fell into Henry hands following the deaths of the childless JJ and Beulah. Those papers–letters and contracts, supreme court decisions and hand-drawn maps, checkbooks and stock certificates, deeds and the car title–moved from East Waterford to Honey Grove, and then to Ohio after they fell into the hands of John Patterson Henry’s old-paper-loving great grandson.

But back to the 1922 Buick. I suppose JJ loved his car, and he must have been an adventurous sort, as he took this car on a trans-continental journey from New York City to the Pacific Ocean. Keep in mind that this was in the 1920s, before the interstate, before chain restaurants and gas stations, when the automotive Blue Book and directions using the big tree on the corner were a motorist’s best friend.

JJ was proud of his trip–so proud that he posed for rather stately photos at various points on the trip. My family has these photos, too, matted and preserved.