MORE PICTURES/TEXT TO BE ADDED LATER. Updated 25 April 2009
This is one of those “should I or shouldn’t I” posts. Let me explain. David and I sat down and listed all the cars/trucks we have owned in our years of marriage. For him it was with great pride ~ for me ~ I’d rather not say……
I hope I tell these things right. I am open to corrections. We counted cars
that we pretty much paid for. There was a car or two that the kids
bought or made payments on themselves.
would still have them.
I don’t know where I missed the fact that David was such a car nut. It would not have made any difference to me when it came to marrying him. I was definitely enough in love with him that I would have been blind to the troubles that the future car lot mentality would bring. I always have thought that David should have sold cars but it would be like me working in a fabric store…..I would keep bringing home what the store sold.
I knew that David had had several cars/trucks in the years I knew him in high school/post high school. But it never occurred to me that this would be a journey of so many wheels when I married him. So, let me for warn you, this might be long.
(1971) 1.
1970 Datsun B210
My dad bought me a 1970 Datsun B210 close to the end of my Senior year. It was butterscotch color. The payment was $67.00 a month. I drove it for 4 years and when David and I got married it was the only car we had. We drove it to Manti when we were married. I have personal stories about that car but for this post they don’t apply.
(1975)
1976 Honda 250XL
This was our first purchase as a married couple. We lived in Joseph City and north of town was an area called the bad lands. Every body had a motorcycle to ride out there. (The beginning of many “reasons” to buy a vehicle.) It was a one man operation so he sold it to a school teacher.
3.1963 Ford Van
The teacher gave us $500 for the bike so we bought a 1963 Ford Van. David took a body shop class and took some of the dents out of the van and we were going to put shag carpet on the floors and walls of the interior. At that time it was a cool thing to do. We went camping at the Lakeside campground and once at Fools Hollow. That makes me laugh. Can’t remember who we sold that one to.
4.
1973 Dodge 4x4 Shortbed Truck
I was pregnant with Peter….pregnant and soooo sick. We moved to Show Low right here. We went to the Temple in Mesa and for recreation we went through a couple of car lots. Honestly, this was not my kind of recreation but I was too sick to object. As we turned a corner in the lot…there it was. There was no going back. The salesmen said we could use the Datsun in trade. I just bawled. I know it was because I was sick and that car was mine. The three of them sat there until I stopped and we signed papers. It was really pretty and loaded. This is the truck David drove me to the hospital in to deliver Peter.
This is the closest I could find to ours. Not so pretty. David wished his looked like this one.
(1976)
5.
1973 Chevy 2 wheel drive Pickup
Little foggy here………but at some point we decided that we didn’t need that Dodge so we traded it for a Chevy. It was red and white. It may have had something to do with our moving back to Joseph City ~ which we did because David’s dad bought the grocery store there and asked David to come and help run it.
(1977)
6.
1958 Chevy Stepside Hot Rod 327 Turdo 400
We sold the ’73 Chevy to a kid in Joseph City so David could buy the ’58. I should note here that there wasn’t much to do in Joe City so motorcycles and cars filled that gap. We only had that one five or six months. It wasn’t that practical of a vehicle and it was the only car we had. Can’t remember who bought it from us.
7.
1965 Chevy Half-ton Fleetside Shortbed
This was a pretty truck. David bought it from a firefighter in Peoria. It was only two wheel drive but it was nice. David liked to drive it. When Michael was born at St. Joseph’s in Phoenix David drove down in that truck.
(1978)
8.
1964 Impala SS
David can’t remember how we found this car. He says it was like a moth to a flame. It was a two door car. The thing I remember most about this car was a trip to Yellowstone. That was a memorable trip. Firstly, that car made it up there and back. Secondly, we were in Idaho Falls and decided to wash it and the pressure from the water hose blew the paint off the car. We sold it to a Indian guy that ran a trading post in Joe City.
(1979)
9.
1965 Impala
Can’t remember where we bought this car. All I know is David really wanted it because it was the same year as the Chevy Fleetside. He thought we were really classy. All I remember thinking it was a newer model and had paint on it. We sold the store this year and moved back to Show Low after a brief move to Provo. And I was happy pregnant with Jill. We had it painted and we loved it. We sold it to my brother, Randy, we also loved it.
10.
1973 Dodge 4x4 Shortbed Tan 4 speed
We needed a truck to get wood. I remember we had $2000 (how we had that money I can’t remember) and drove to Flagstaff and low and behold on the side of the street was that truck. And it was $2000. We were so excited. This was the truck that David took me to the hospital for Jill and Tim’s birth.
(1980)
11.
1974 Green Volvo Station Wagon
I always wanted a Volvo. And for what it is worth ~ it was a smooth riding car. But it had a cracked block. That was probably caused from a time I drove it to Show Low and the motor overheated. It also had to have the alternator replaced and that was about $400. We didn’t have that kind of money. We sold it to a used car dealer for about nothing. We had sold our house in Show Low and moved to Pinetop in October of 1980.
12.
1973 Green Mustang ~ not the fast back.
When we came back to Show Low, Dad offered David a job. (Let me mention here that we owe our living to that job offer ~ David is still appraising ~thanks, Dad.) Dad was picking up Mustangs right and left so he gave one to David and one to Jeff to drive. That was nice ~ it gave our family two cars to drive.
13.
1969 Sky Blue/Blue Mustang
Another one of Dad’s Mustangs. Dad wanted to drive the ’73 Green Mustang.
(1984)
14.
1984 Red Ford Fiesta
The first part of this year David and Jeff bought out my Dad’s business. They paid for it by building his and Beverly’s house in Pinedale. Part of the business included this Fiesta.
David drove it for a while and then he and Jeff gave it to my mom. She was without a car for some reason at this time. That was the last car she ever drove.
15.
1971 Buick Skylark ~ Blue
I was pregnant with Heidi and I told David that I wanted him to take me to the hospital in a car when it was time for her to be born. We went to Flagstaff and bought this car from a dealer. We had to replace a rear leaf spring on it. Once we took it to St. David and on the way home, in Globe, the oil light came on. David suspected the oil pump. We pulled into a restaurant parking lot and turned it off. David opened the hood looked inside and closed the hood. We just decided to drive on. We got home and the next morning he took it into the shop and the mechanic told us that the oil pump was shot. We always considered it a miracle that our little family made it home safely.
16.
1984 Dodge D50 Pickup
The business bought this truck. It was sorta light blue and two wheel drive.
This truck lasted for a long time. Not much to say about it. It was nice.
17.
Mid 80’s Full Size Pontiac Station Wagon
We traded the Skylark for this station wagon at Horne Auto. Heidi had been born and we needed more space. And space we got! It had a third seat in the back that faced back. We didn’t take great trips in it but we did go down the Coronado Trail and over to the Tonto Bridge National Monument and short trips like that. I really liked that car.
Peter busted out a window of this car ~ he was hitting a baseball with a bat.
18.
1986 Plymouth Reliant (K car)
This is why we bought this car: David’s sister Phyllis from Blackfoot, Idaho had one. She would stuff those Idaho farm boys in the back and JoAnna, her daughter, in the front and drive all the way to Arizona to visit. We thought they were the best of people and decided that we could be like them and do the same thing. And it got great gas mileage.
So for a number of years we stuffed our kids into it. The only trip I remember is one to Tucson for Spring Break. Russ Jones, a friend of Pete’s, stayed with us and we went to the Air Show in Tucson. I was pregnant with Lee and we were all in that car. Russ never questioned all seven and a half of us in that car. Lee came home from the Hospital when she was born in this car.
Good bye to a Good Friend Somewhere in here we sold the Dodge Truck. Pete had started driving and we bought him an old truck, which will be mentioned later, and we all went out and got wood west of Pinedale. I guess there were people taking wood illegally out there. We weren’t. We got two nice loads, one for Pete’s smaller truck and one for David’s Dodge. Long story short: some guy who saw us leaving the forest boundaries and coming into Pinedale came after us. He drove like a crazy man around us and tried to run Pete off the highway. We saw all this and it, can I say mildly, ticked us off. Pete did stop and so did he and we pulled up behind them both. This guy was ripping on Pete and we came up asking what was going on and he started in on us and the illegal wood and how the people in Pinedale pretty much owned that forest anyway. I’m not in people’s faces very much but I was that night. I remember telling him my roots were deeper in Pinedale that his were and that my dad was born there and that he had no right pulling over a 16 year old new driver on the busy highway. I am sure David had some choice words, too. The guy backed off and we went home. David had been thinking about selling his truck and that was the tipping point. We sold it to our neighbors, the Smith’s. Skip said he had watched David fix that truck for years and had confidence that they were getting a good vehicle. And, honestly, to the best of our thinking, they were. But about a week later something big fell apart in it. We were as sad about that as they were. It sat parked in the back of their yard for a couple of years and then they sold it. I was sad to see it leave them, too.
We drove that truck to Yellowstone once with a camper on it. With a camper shell we drove it to Blackfoot for a Missionary farewell. We camped up to Big Lake many times in it. We drove it to St. David with the three oldest children. And, again, Jill and Tim both came home from the hospital in it. And all that wood we cut to heat our home.
Our big planned trip to Yellowstone almost didn’t happen because a bearing had spun on the axle. David and Pete drove to a wrecking yard in Holbrook because we thought there was an axle there. No so. So they drove 90 miles an hour to Springerville to another wrecking yard and got a new axle. Tim Storms fixed it and we took off late in the afternoon and spent the night near Page in a lightening storm.
There was a lot of stability in owning that truck for so many years. Once it was gone I used to feel like we were similar to displaced farmers…..no implements to do what we had always done.
(1989-1995)
Quick summary of the Suburbans
19.
1976 Chevy Suburban 4x4
We bought this first of many Suburbans after Lee was born. We really wanted something that we could all go into the forest with. We ended up selling it about a year after we bought it. We couldn’t afford two car payments.
20.
1974 Copper Suburban 4x4
But we were sold on Suburbans. So the next one came a year later. This one belonged to some people we knew and they told us it got good mileage. But it had been a vehicle that pulled their boat and had a huge motor in it. Not so good mileage.
21.
1985 Blue/Gray 4x4 Suburan
Traded the copper Suburan for this one. We paid it off and decided to put a new motor in it. We got screwed. The motor never ran right and would actually stop on us and the mechanic that put it in also took our good carburator and hubs. He had a truck the same year as our suburban and he traded his old for our new. For a while we would take it back in and they would say they tweeked the motor and we would take it back. . We had no way to prove it. We had plans of hanging onto it for along time. We had even had the transmission rebuilt.
This is the Suburban that we took Pete to the mission home in Provo in. The Tuesday after we got home from Provo, I pulled out of our driveway to go to work and before I had gone 150 yards the transmission had completely fallen apart. It sounded like metal grinding and bending and then it just stopped. It was under warranty so they fixed it. But by this time David had lost all confidence in it so when he passed Darner Motors of Show Low and saw…..
22.
1991 Chevy Blue/White Suburban
He called me on the phone and said he wanted to look at it. I loved it, too. We bought it. I remember taking the kids for a ride in it up into the country club and driving slow and Jill asked me why I was driving so slow and I remember thinking that it seemed like such a big vehicle that I had to drive it slow. I got over that. We loved that Suburban. It had all the bells and whistles and looked nice. We took it to Yellowstone once with Heidi and Lee (Tim was at BYU basketball camp)and to a lot of games and meets and club stuff. We planned on keeping it forever. We had it lifted and David had big ticket items replaced.
We had it when Pete and Brittany got married. We helped them move to Laramie with it. I remember Brittany thinking it was a huge vehicle. I remember thinking I liked that.
We had it when Jill and John got married.
We had it when the Snowflake Temple was under construction. We had had some maintenance done on it one week and that Sunday Bishop Shane Hall asked each family to take their children down and spend some time near the Temple. We took the Suburban.
Lee and Heidi were in the back and Dave and I in the front. On the way there David asked if I could hear the whine in the rear end? As best as I hear those things, I said, “yes”. He said I am going to get that fixed and then this Suburban is going to be solid for us for a long time. I liked hearing that. It was paid for and I still loved it. On our return trip ~ on the divide ~ the oil light came one. Now normally, David would immediately stop but he had already reattached some wires that the mechanic missed and he thought this was more of the same but less than a minute later the bearings froze up on the crank shaft. We limped into town and called Beverly for a ride home.
We found out the next morning that to replace the motor was more than the Suburban was worth. (We came to the conclusion that the mechanic had dropped something into the valve assembly and that plugged up an oil port ~ but, again, ~ no way to prove that.)
(2002)
23.
2000 Oldmobile Intrigue
Hatch Motors took our Suburban in trade. This was at a point where we had felt that we were spending a lot on gas. That was ok because the Suburban was paid for but we now could change our thinking and we did. We bought a sedan. The Intrigue was a nice car and it did get good gas mileage. But it had issues…..we had issues. It was a car! We had been in SUVs for so long that this felt like “the other people” car. I felt like an
old lady in it. And the Suburban was big so we never touched each other. Heidi was in high school and Lee was big herself and David would tell them to “quit kicking the
seat and keep your hands off the windows”. I know that was because he was too close to them. Needless to say our eyes were always wandering when we drove by car dealers.
24.
2000 Mitsubishi Montero
Good bye Intrigue. David saw this pretty green Montero and we didn’t think twice about trading it. And we liked it. But then again ~ it was small. Tim had come home from his mission and went to Utah. We made plans for a trip to Disneyland for Spring Break and Tim drove home and went with us. Somebody had to ride in the cargo space so all of us could fit in. That was ok. It was an adventure. But our hearts still wanted a Suburban.
(2003)
25.
2000 Chevy 4x4 Suburban
Horne Auto knew we were looking for a Suburban. They took one in trade and
called us. We were sold. David and I both agree that that was the nicest car we ever owned. I still love it. We drove it everywhere. Like the other suburbans I always felt safe in it because it was big. I liked that we could load a ton of family in it and take them to get Christmas trees or whatever. We moved Heidi to EA in it. That broke my heart. We took it to Silverton to take Heidi to her summer job. Tim and Connie were engaged and they went with us. They sat in the middle seat between us all and never even knew we were there. Pete and Brittany would borrow it when they flew home. It was just such a good car. But we were reaching a point where we needed to change our thinking again. Heidi married and Lee would be leaving so just me in that big old Suburban seemed a bit politically incorrect. So we took it and David’s big Chevy truck and traded it.
(2008)
26.
2006 Toyota Tacoma 4x4
Now that was a nice truck. It got pretty good mileage and was really solid. David always called it “Tricia’s truck”. Of all the cars we owned to this point this is the one that people really liked. Like all of our cars we drove it to games and camps and clubs. There isn’t that much to say about it except that it’s trade-in value was very helpful.
27.
2008 Pontiac Vibe
With the price of gas going through the roof and all of our children out of the house we decided we needed a car that got extra good gas mileage. David studied cars and decided we needed to look for a Pontiac Vibe. Horne Auto went looking and found one that had been used by Hertz. If I had my druthers I would have anything but white but white it is.
In some ways this car takes us full circle ~ as we started our marriage in a small car that got good gas mileage. But, then again, it isn’t a 4x4 or a suburban. But when we go places and get 36 (that is the best) miles per gallon we are soooo ok with this car.
DAVID’S WORK CARS
(1975)
28.
1973 Datsun Pickup
We are calling this the first work vehicle David drove. It was part of the store in Joseph City. It was always beat up looking and faded. It was used for garbage runs and meat runs to Show Low. After David’s dad bought the store and we moved back to Joseph City from Show Low and the same truck was still running the same errands. One Sunday evening we came home from a church event after dark and David saw two men behind the store. They were loading all the boxes of empty pop bottles into their truck. (This was still when there was a return on bottles for cash.) He ran over and got that old truck and went to confront them. They took off on the highway and he took off after them. It scared me to death. I didn’t know where he was going or what might happen. He told me he got it going 80 miles an hour and it sounded like a jet. And he was being left behind. So he stopped and came home.
Side note: He knew who it was. We never recovered the bottles but one of the men came into the store for meat one day and David confronted him with a cheese knife and the guy just turned and walked out and never came back into the store.
29.
1972 Green Mustang Sedan back 302 motor
I mentioned this car before because it factored into our family life. But it was one of the Mustangs that dad’s business owned. It wasn’t David’s style of car but it was a second car. He said if it had been the fast back Mustang that would be a different story.
30.
1969 Blue Mustang 3 speed 6 cylinder ~ great mileage
This car is still running. It was sold to a lady in Taylor and David sees it every now and then. This was dad’s car, too. But when we bought his business it came with the business so it became David’s car. He took Pete and Jill with him to St. David and he just made a flat platform in the back seat for them to play on as they traveled down. He also shared this car with a mouse. He never emptied the trash out of it until it was seat high. Perfect home for a mouse. We would notice mouse droppings in cups, etc. but it didn’t make sense that a mouse was in the car. He was driving once and thought something fell out of the dash and it was the mouse and it ran across his feet. He could hardly believe it. But he set a trap and caught it.
31.
Red Ford Fiesta
This car got 40 miles per gallon. It also came with the business. It was SMALL. In cold weather the carburetor would freeze up and he would have to spray carburetor cleaner down its throat to keep it going. We drove it to Phoenix for Thanksgiving once. There was David, Pete, Jill, Tim, my mom, and me in that car. We stayed the Friday after Thanksgiving and went Christmas shopping. So we added all of that to the crowd. We bought the Chipmunk Christmas tape and played it on the way home. I can say that we also had Heidi with us. I was starting to get sick with her. We ended up giving that car to mom. She was genuinely surprised and pleased.
32.
1985 Dodge D50 Light Blue Low Rider
Bought this one brand new. It was the first car he ever had with air conditioning. He used it for years and paid it off. We are thinking that this was the truck he took to get a little wood. A ranger came walking out of the trees and gave him a ticket and took his wood. We started buying wood after that. David gave this truck to Pete and he drove it for about 2 years before he graduated from high school.
33.
1989 Mazda Pickup 4x4 Shortbed Pickup
This truck keeps getting forgotten for some reason. David traded this to Scott Kay for the 4runner below. The guy who bought it from Scott thought he bought a Toyota. David knows this because one of the girls that worked at the Title Co. knew this truck because David stopped in for work all the time there. That same lady was the wife of the guy. She said he came home and told her he had bought a Toyota. She went out and looked at it and said, “it says Mazda”. Isn’t that funny?
34.
1990 Toyota 4x4 4Runner 5 Speed 4 cylinder
Bought this one from Scott Kay. It had a bad vibration that turned out to be a bent rear drive shaft. He took it out and while they were fixing it he drove it around on the front drive shaft. He put a lot…a lot of miles on this motor. So he traded it on a Jeep.
35.
1997 Jeep Wrangler
This had a soft top, white paint, air conditioning, 5 speed and it was a lemon. He really liked it but it kept having engine troubles. He would take it in and they would keep it for a week and he would drive it for a week and they would take it for a week and he would drive it for a week. So before the warranty ran out he took it back in one more time and said you keep it ~ I’ll take this truc
k.
36.
1995 Chevy 4x4 Half Ton Long Bed Pickup.
This was a utility vehicle as well as a work truck. Just a nice looking Chevy. This was the first time he realized that you loose power by putting bigger tires on a vehicle. He had been able to drive over the mountain going to Round Valley with out shifting gears but once he put bigger tired on it he had to shift into third to get over the top with any kind of speed.
Pete drove this some when he came home from his mission. He got stopped once for speeding on his way to Flagstaff. The officer that stopped him saw his scriptures on the seat next to him and said something like, “I have a set like those at home” and just gave him a warning.
37.
1999 Nissan Frontier 4x4 ~ 5 Speed
Traded the Chevy for this. It was used. But David really liked this truck. He would drive it to Wyo. to watch Pete play football. It had a lot of power and it was fun to drive.
38.
2002 Blue Chevy 4x4 Shortbed
In my opinion, this truck was for show. It was pretty and David put a lift under it and it was even nicer looking then. He would have kids come up to him and say how much they loved it. He decided it was too young looking for an old fart like him. But instead of trading it he offered it to Tim. Who, of course, said, “sure, I’d love to have it…payments and all”.
(2004) 39.1985 Chevy Long Bed Pick Up.
We bought this to get wood with. And we did! And we will!
I like to ride in it best of all. It reminds me of trucks gone by
and how I felt being in a real truck. David gets compliments on
it ~ believe it or not. His best is an Apache guy who told
him he had a “bad ass pickup”.
43.
This is my favorite picture from the evening. You can see that Bishop was so touched by the gesture. And their daughter, Calli, is just all smiles. What I love is Heidi ~ the woman behind the Man. I can just see how much she loves him. 
Zina Porter, who is 105, wanted to come and speak with him. She had to sit in the car and he went over to her. 
Does this picture show just how much he was loved by the youth?
Wall to wall people.
This is Rena, Aaron's mom.
Inspector Brown.
This is what Coleen does best.
Abbey at the Helm.
She loved these Geese.
Grandpa with Abbey.
Thank you, Marielle, for taking the initiative to put this
