The year had been a good one farm-wise in 1968, and the Turner’s were due for a new car. The Buick Wildcat had a good many miles on it and we had to get a new “status symbol”. So knowing there would be money for the trade-in difference, Mr. Turner started looking – it was a good Saturday afternoon pastime. He took the family along (at least if they were home – John and Joe Lee were through school and gone). Jane had one more year to go and Jan was at trade school. The load of educating the children was almost finished. We had come from a pick-up Ford, Chevrolet, Plymouth and now we felt ready for a luxury car. At least it had to have heater, air conditioner, power steering, brakes – the works! As we looked at cars, Mr. Turner said “I’ve always wanted to own a Cadillac”. He said it with the wistfulness of a young boy who expresses his desire for his first car. After looking at other cars he kept coming back to the Cadillac, so finally the trade was made and the 1969 Tan Cadillac Sedan DeVille came to sit in the Turner garage and to take the Turners to their various appointments. How proud we were to drive up to Church on Sunday morning in a new car. The Turners were coming up in the world!

Soon after getting the Cadillac, it was Christmas and we went to North Carolina for the Holidays. The relatives were unimpressed with the new car, but we rode proudly. It was really a novelty that a car’s lights would stay on and then automatically go off in five minutes. It was something to touch a button and have windows go up and down. It was something to set the temperature at a comfortable setting and have it stay there.

The Cadillac stayed in the Turner family for six years, through glad times and sad. This story is about some of the experiences it carried the family through.

The next summer, 1969, the family went on a vacation – one of the best ones they had ever had. The Turners went to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and planned to spend the night but without reservations we couldn’t get a motel so we kept driving to Rodgers, Arkansas where we finally got a place to sleep. The next day we drove south to Fort Smith then through Oklahoma and on to Dallas to spend the night. Joe Lee saw some friends at Texas Instruments where he had worked. The next day we drove south through Temple and Bolton, Texas. Both of these towns were places Ruel had heard his father talk about when he had lived for ten years in Texas (going from place to place in his covered wagon). We went to Johnson City, Texas and toured President Johnson’s home and birthsite. Ruel had wanted to see the farm on the Perdenales River. Next we went to San Antonio to see the Alamo, spending the night in a motel where they were having a Catholic Youth Conference. Then we went to Houston to spend the week-end with John and Nina and the grandson. The car didn’t give a bit of trouble and took us where we wanted to go. We returned home, happy that we had had this time together and had seen places we had heard and studied about in news and history. Confined with the dimensions of a car we had gotten along pretty well as a family and stored up memories.

The Cadillac carried us to football games and then to MSCW to Jane’s graduation. In the Spring of 1970 it carried her to her first job in Helena, Arkansas. It carried us to her wedding at the Methodist Church in Rosedale in 1971 and then when her husband had to go to Survival School for six weeks, it carried Jane, Jan, and I to North Carolina for a summer vacation and reunion. We had a beautiful trip through the mountains and a stop in Oak Ridge, Tennessee to visit an old classmate.

In the fall of 1971 the Cadillac carried the family to the funeral of Mary Emma, Ruel’s sister who killed herself. Less than nine months after that it carried us to his funeral. Perhaps the Cadillac had brought him a little of the prestige which he had worked so hard to achieve, perhaps a little of the joy in life he so richly deserved. Material possessions become so much a part of us that they seem to have a personality themselves.

The car continued to serve. Now the farm must continue and life must go on. I appreciated the car that I had inherited. It was always easy to start.

After the shock of Ruel’s death wore off, we took up the reins of life. We had to plan for a trip to Lubbock, Texas to Joe Lee’s wedding. This was a trip Mr. Turner had looked forward to, but now the Cadillac must make the trip without him. Jerry and Gloria, Jan, Zora, Ruthel, and I started out on a hot August day. This was the first trip the car had given any trouble. The air conditioner didn’t work and the engine started getting hot. We tried to do without the air conditioner. We stopped at several Cadillac dealers, but we finally made it to Lubbock and had the car repaired.

We mainly used the Cadillac after that for short trips until 1973 when we had high water and we took off for Houston in it.

When we bought a new Cadillac in January of 1975, we sold the old car to a tenant, Willie Edwards, who had long dreamed of owning such a car. To see him get his wife and daughter and her seven children in it and drive to down, you could see his pride. He kept it in apple pie order with his knowledge of mechanics and washed it weekly.

In 1978 (August 27th) Willie’s mother died and while the car was parked at the cemetery for the burial, the Cadillac caught fire. It caused a big commotion for they had to call out the Pace fire department to put it out. Although the car was packed with family as usual, they all managed to get out. They had to restrain Willie from getting too close to the car to quench the flames. It was hard to see the pride of his life going up in flames. The underside of the car was burned and the shell of it smoked. He brought it home to rest under a shade tree until he could access the damage. About all it was worth was to be sold for parts, so it sat in Willie’s yard as the parts were sold piece by piece. Finally it was all sold. The Turner Cadillac is now part and parcel of many old Cadillacs in Bolivar County. Thus the saga of the Cadillac is ended.