Title
Weekly News April 4, 2011Description
Trip to Buck Hill Falls, 1964: Frank T. Way, a second cousin of Clarence Marshall, died in 1942 at the age of 64. Some ten years later his widow, Phoebe B. Way, approached Clarence about buying a Stanley for her son Robert, as her husband Frank and Frank’s brother Paul had each owned a Stanley in the 1910-1918 period. Bob was mechanically inclined and was a successful wholesale rose grower in Kennett Square, following in the footsteps of his father and uncle. My dad (Clarence) sold Phoebe a 1919 Model 735 in average condition for $750.
Bob was grateful for the gift from his mother, retubed the Stanley’s boiler, and soon made the car “road worthy.” Some of the trips he and his wife, Kay, undertook were quite ambitious, often involving their four children, with the six of them plus luggage and the necessary tools all packed into the short-coupled 4-passenger touring car. In 1957, Bob and Kay, without children, made the trip to Roxbury, New York, and Lenox, Massachusetts, as did I in our Model 76. In 1958, they drove their car to the Steam Car Tour at Lakeville, Connecticut, along with my father and me in his 1924 Doble. Through the 1960s, they used their Stanley right along, and I believe they drove it on the 1961 Glidden Tour through eastern Pennsylvania.
Weldin Stumpf bought his Model 77 Stanley from my father in 1963, and he soon got it running quite well. Three Stanleys with drivers Stumpf, Way, and Marshall made several tours together, usually of two or three days’ duration. It was great fun; the three Stumpf children were about the same age as the four Way children. All were girls except Frank T. Way II, almost the youngest of the lot (Joan Stumpf was younger). Since I was usually alone in one of our cars (often the 76), often I had young friends in the back seat.
In 1964, the party of 12 with three Stanleys left Yorklyn and Kennett with the intent of stopping two nights in the Poconos before the return trip home. Going north on the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s Northeast Extension, the Way car began to fail, so we got off at Allentown, checked into the Holiday Inn there, dropped the burner, and found the superheater was cracked and leaking badly. Bob Way and I rented a car and headed for Yorklyn for a replacement. We returned late that evening with simply a short piece of tubing as a makeshift superheater that should allow Bob’s 735 to continue the trip. Indeed, the trip was continued, but the burner also had problems, and as we climbed toward Mount Pocono, we were moving at between 5 and 10 m.p.h. We stayed that night at an old-fashioned family resort just east of Mount Pocono, had a good time, and the next morning planned to visit Buck Hill Falls before starting our trip home.
Driving past the cottages and the big Inn at Buck Hill, we went down the rather steep descent to the Falls. The kids had a big time taking the rugged paths and splashing under the falls. It was time to go, so all piled back in the cars, and we climbed the narrow road to the town, nearly a mile away. One of the girls said “Where’s Frank?” Nine-year-old Frank had stayed behind, possibly as a prank, and he was laughing as the steam caravan came back to the falls to pick him up. The trip home was uneventful. On the back seat of the 76, I had two 16-year-olds, Debbie Way (Brumbaugh), and Dorothy “Dee” Stumpf (Parke), who seemed to enjoy each other’s company more than the steamer ride.
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