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Weekly News September 17, 2012Description
L. Edward Pamphilon (1910-1964): Ed Pamphilon, also known as “Pam,” was an early steam car owner and secretary of AACA for several years before his death. At the Fall Meet held at Devon in 1946, Pam appeared to us for the first time, driving a 1919 Stanley Model 735 painted yellow. He had just bought the car from Hyde Ballard, and he sought advice on how to operate a Stanley properly. In the next 18 years, he owned four Stanleys and became a very good “steam man.” We saw him frequently at Auburn Heights.
Pam was raised at Sheffield in western Massachusetts, the son of a pharmacist there. During World War II, he was working in the Philadelphia area and married a Philadelphia girl named Lily. After the war, he became engaged in building radio stations in small cities from Washington, D.C., to Boston and found this to be very profitable, although it required frequent moving. By the late 1940s, he was living in the Washington area and became instrumental in the establishment of the National Capital Region, AACA, and was very active with the half-dozen local steam car owners there at that time. In 1949, he went on the Glidden Tour through Virginia in his yellow Stanley accompanied by Mervin Allatt, providing one of seven steam cars that participated, the largest number ever on a Glidden Tour Revival. In 1950, he moved to Boston with his wife and his Stanley, and, again, he immediately became a “member” of the steam car community there. He was on the small committee that sponsored the 1951 Steam Car Tour at Wellesley and the Larz Andersen Museum.
Moving back to the D.C. area and settling in Hyattsville, Maryland, he sold his yellow Stanley to Robert M. Chambers of Pittsburgh in 1953 in favor of a 1911 Model 62 (similar to the car now owned by Steve Jensen). Restoring the small non-condenser to perfection (for those days), he drove it to a steam car tour at Easton, Maryland, in 1955 and on the Glidden Tour, again in Virginia, in 1957. By 1955, however, he had acquired another Model 735, this time a 1918 model similar to the one in the FAHP collection and drove it after a speedy restoration to the Steam Car Tour at Lakeville, Connecticut, in 1955. About 1960, he sold the little Model 62 and purchased from my father a former James Melton 1911 Stanley Model 71. Choosing to give the 71 a complete body-off restoration in his shop in the backyard of his home, he never got the car completed before his final illness. He passed away during the Hershey Meet in 1964 at the age of 54. Pam and Lily were childless, but they were strong proponents of steam cars in the AACA. Retiring from the Navy about 1973, Jim Keith of McLean, Virginia, bought the “Pamphilon” Model 71, and it has been used continuously for nearly 40 years.
Pam, as secretary of AACA, was the one who suggested that the national club should run a bargain trip to Europe in 1960 to celebrate the club’s 25th anniversary. Knowing I was a travel agent at the time, he asked me to suggest a trip that he could sell to the club hierarchy. We came up with a late October 18-day “package” for $514 per person from New York, and to get to Europe and back, Sabena Belgian Airlines provided the first passenger jet, a Boeing 707, ever to be chartered on a transatlantic flight. The price quoted above included six countries in Western Europe, with all meals and first-class hotels. A total of 243 AACA members took advantage of the bargain, but Pam and Lily did not go.
On a lighter side, a common joke known by almost everyone in the antique car fraternity involved Pam and his mother-in-law. It seems this strong-willed woman was adamant that her son-in-law should not waste his time with old cars. When she learned he had one, she insisted he sell it immediately. From that time on, supposedly she did not know “Edward” owned a Stanley, and he owned four, often two at a time. After dinner, he would excuse himself, go to his shop in the backyard, pull all the shades, and work on his Stanleys without her knowledge. Once she was visiting when the National Capital Region had a Sunday dinner run, but Pam dared not take his Stanley with her present, so they went in his modern Chrysler New Yorker. As one or more Stanleys owned by others parked at the restaurant, the mother-in-law exclaimed to all, “Edward used to have one like that!”
Hagley Car Show Report
A total of 7 vehicles from the Marshall Collection traveled to the Hagley Car Show on Sunday, including the Mountain Wagon, which had been temporarily "restored" to its prior appearance as a delivery truck! It was a picture-perfect day, and the Steam Team distributed a record number of rack cards about our events. A staggering number of raffle tickets for the Granogue Outing were also sold, bringing the fundraiser's total revenue to more than $3,800! Wow!
Winner to be announced soon, pending confirmation with them of their big win (a message has already been left).
