Time’s Wheeled Chariot

Mary Jane Armstrong Henney, of Mansfield, Ohio, who is 87 years old, writes: “I compile books on local history. My contention is that the original text, written at the time history happened, is more accurate and revealing than what is written in later years.” With her letter, Mrs. Henney included these two photographs that nail down a bit of her own history: “When Carl, my little brother, received his Kiddie Car for his third birthday in 1923, he could hardly wait for nice weather when he could take it outside to ride on the sidewalk. All of four years older, I was charged with watching and caring for him. Wearing his fireman’s hat and issuing his verbal siren, he rode contentedly for hours, occasionally stopping, as he put it, to ‘fill air in the tires’ before going to fight a fire.”

During World War II Carl Armstrong served four years in the Pacific with the 27th Infantry Division. Today he is retired from Abbott Laboratories. As you enter his living room, Carl’s sister writes, the first thing you see is the Kiddie Car, a survivor after 80-some years.