In 1938 Grandpa Henry Lee McCollum bought a brand new Pontiac four door sedan. Remember the suicide front doors?
It was well equipped with a radio and a heater. Pretty nice. Grandpa had decided to take the ultimate vacation, a trip to Florida. He had a Brother that lived in Fitzjerald, Georgia and a brother that lived in West Palm Beach, Florida. He wanted to visit them both with one trip. This was not something a guy from Hazard did very often.
So it was decided that Grandma and her three daughters would go on this great journey. They threw me in for good measure. A seven year old kid wouldn't take up too much room. It was pretty crowed though. It was a long trip through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia on that old two lane road. It took grandpa 3 days driving time to get to West Palm Beach. We stayed all night at different "tourist homes." Along the road. People would rent out bedrooms to travelers in their own homes. they would also serve breakfast before you left the next morning. There weren't very many motels along the highways back then. It was all fun to me. I saw a lot of new and interesting things on that trip.
When we finally got to Florida we saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time just south of St. Augustine. Grandpa parked the car and took out the old Kodak box camera. The girls took their shoes off and walked barefoot on the beach. I waded into the water and romped around in the surf. The Ocean and the waves were awesome to see. What a great day! We also enjoyed West Palm Beach with the orange trees and the coconut trees in the back yard. Then after a great vacation week in Florida we packed up and started back to the mountains, wishing we could come back again someday.
In the photo left to right: Aunt Lorene Huff, my mother, Lilly Mae Watts, Grandma, Dora lee McCollum, Aunt Norma McCollum and me.
If anyone is related to these folks, I'd like to visit with you. My great-great-grandfather, William E. McCollum had a brother, Henry Lee McCollum, who was married to Martha Ann Dora Findley in Northwest Georgia, in Cobb County. I know that my great-great uncle, Henry Lee McCollum, worked for the L&N Railroad for most of his adult life and was supposed to have died in Nashville, TN but lived for some time in Perry County, KY. I am thinking that the grandpa in this story is the same man as my relative except that my Henry Lee McCollum had only two brothers and no sisters and one of the brothers had died in 1914 and none ever lived in FL as far as I know. So maybe I have the wrong family but I show that Norma T. McCollum's mother was listed a "Dora Findley" which really has me wondering if we have two different families with VERY similar names. miketx875 at aol.com
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