It was a crisp Christmas morning in 1942 when my parents crossed the border into Mexico with their 1937 Pierce-Arrow Travelodge Model A camper in tow. Theirs was not a vacation but the beginning of a ministry of translating the New Testament into the previously unwritten Huasteco language. My brother was an infant and I was born two years after they set up camp on a reservation in central Mexico. Their camper stood in stark contrast to the surrounding bamboo walled, single room huts topped with thatch roofs. About all they shared in common was square footage.
The 19’ Pierce-Arrow was to be my first home. My parents slept in the back where they converted the dinette into a bed, and my brother and I slept in the front—he on the click clack sofa and I in a crib. The side of my crib kept him from rolling off the bed.
For three years the four of us lived in the camper without electricity or running water. For most of that time my brother and I were in diapers. Summer temperatures sizzled so much that one day the thermometer exploded when it shot past 120 degrees. The risk of contracting malaria from mosquito bites kept us confined to the inside after dark. How my family managed to cope under those conditions I can hardly imagine!
The Mexico camper story ended on a sad note. While visiting family in the US one summer, the trailer caught fire and burned to the ground. All was lost including six years of my father’s translation work.
Since I have only vague memories of our Travelodge, I was thrilled to see an identical one, beautifully restored, in the Gilmore Car Museum near Kalamazoo, MI. I spent nearly an hour checking out every inch of it, trying to picture my family living in one just like it 68 years earlier. A wave of emotions washed over me as I studied it inside and out.
The luxury Pierce-Arrow car company suffered financially in the depression and ventured into the camper business in hopes of keeping the company afloat. Sadly, it went bankrupt in 1937 after producing 440 campers. 105 Model A’s, their flagship model, were built and the rest were 16 and 13 footers. It is estimated that fewer than a half dozen 19’ Model A’s survive today.
At the time of my visit to the Gilmore, I could not have imagined that I would one day own one of these rare, highly collectible campers. But one recently found me! A friend with whom I had shared the Mexico story alerted me to one that was for sale in Louisville, KY. I immediately jumped at the chance to buy it. Truly, it was like finding a needle in a haystack.
Though needing a complete restoration, the cabinetry is intact and the body is amazingly well preserved. My intent is to bring it back to its original condition and, having lived in a trailer just like it, I have found working on it extremely enjoyable. In Greek mythology the Phoenix found new life arising out of the ashes of its predecessors. Happily, my restored Travelodge will be named, “The Phoenix.”
