Rescuing a 1950 Willys Jeep from a collapsed barn

My grandfather's farm is where my mother, she and her 12 siblings grew up, this is where they probably settled when about half the children were born. One of the ways they helped pay for all the children was that they had a dairy and

barn

there. There was a small shop in the front, they milked the cows in the morning and afternoon, they bottled the milk and sold it as grade A raw milk. It was always a place of freedom that we could go there and usually I want I mean, when I was at home, my mom. She looked at me like a pig, I mean, yeah, I had some flexibility in my neighborhood and stuff, but when we went to the farm we had 400 acres to Rome and we rode ponies, we drove the

jeep

, we drove the tractor.

We fished in the pond across the road and in the winter we went sledding and there was always something to do. My dad was from the same area so we would go see his mom and then we would go to the farm and see mom's mom and mom's dad, my dad was born in Fidelity Kentucky which was a mining camp for Stearns Colon Lumber and he , her dad died in a mining accident when she was two years old and the mining company gave my grandmother a life. she insurance policy for four thousand dollars and she built a four-bedroom house in Whitley City Kentucky.

My grandfather always wore shoes called Brogans, which were high leather shoes which was what he wore on the farm and he wore khaki pants, khaki shirts and a bolo. I think that's what they call them Safari, hand that my uncle Essel had brought him back from the war and I remember following him with other cousins ​​like a flock of geese, my grandmother was about 411. and we always thought that when we became as tall as Grandma , we had arrived and Grandma always wore an apron and wore type A work shoes and was a good cook, she used to make us oatmeal in the mornings for breakfast and I used to think I could survive on oatmeal alone and then she would bake cookies and we would take a pocket full of cookies every time we went out around the farm, the Jeep is there, okay, so all these things are in the way of attracting.

There's the floor, yeah, and then if you look in, you'll see the flat fender on the wheels, you see, I see the wheel, yeah, oh, yeah, there's a flat fender, my God, and then this, look, There's some wood that's been stacked there, I don't think that's the floor, my earliest memories of the Jeep mostly revolve around the gear we put on it and like when my grandfather first bought it. I think the stats are and we have to verify this once we get to the VIN number, but I think it was a Willis 49 cj3a. He bought it new.

I don't know where he bought it. I think it would be interesting to know that he drove it and then the kids. There were always a bunch of kids in it and then I would put it out in the yard and we would play in it and there's a picture of some of the older cousins ​​playing in the

jeep

we have that my mom had. that I need to move again, but I've seen it recently and then as we got older, my uncle Junior drove it and Dan and I would go in the Jeep with Junior and go out into the country and kill bulls.

Nettles and checking the cattle and checking the fences and then when we got old enough to find out we could drive him, we would know that at 11, 12, 13 years old we would get in, we got him going because he was always on. He started driving around the farm. . If we got him into a jam that we couldn't get him out of, then we would have to go get the tractor to get him out, so he became a toy for us and most of the kids. The grandkids drove that jeep at some point right on the farm, it was just one of those things that Junior put us in it and said, "Do it right, boys and girls, we're here at Family Farm in Mccreary County, Kentucky and "Uh, Papa Murphy." Tell me what kind of mission we are on right now.

We're on a mission to dig up the '49 Willys Jeep my grandpa bought new and I guess I'll have to verify it with a VIN number. in the Jeep, but it's in a

barn

that

collapsed

five years ago in a snowstorm, so it has a lot of debris on it, so we're digging through the debris so we can get the Jeep back and we've finally started. to see it so this was all a

collapsed

roof and hidden down here a little jeeper let's call Dillard hey buddy we found you come on baby come on baby hey yeah yeah more fun than playing with my memory it's about Jeep evoked fun because you know, I mean, obviously, I've never in my life in Louisville driven a car or a Jeep or anything on the roads of Louisville because that would have been illegal, so the idea of ​​being able to go go to the farm and being able to get in a Jeep and Being able to drive it at 12 was a big deal and, you know, Dan and I said it was our toy, you know, I mean, the kids meant that nowadays they can have four-wheelers.

We might have, you know, motorcycles or whatever, well we had the jeep and the ponies, so you know it was like an amusement park. I mean, we had a great time doing almost nothing, just playing, so you know, we'd just drive the Jeep. and play, you know, play like we're doing something right, this is where we are right now. She is slowly pulling out, taking all the weight off the top. We have managed to get the roof to be removed with two roofs back and to the side. the winch and slowly we are digging Willy's s49 jeep and I always remember it because it was a key part of that experience on the farm that I always wanted to have it and the last time I asked Junior, he knew I could buy it.

It was in 1986 and he said: I'm going to fix it. So I went and bought the 61 Willies that you and I are rebuilding and I had them until a couple of years ago when we started destroying them as a trophy, so that was my consolation prize and and the thing is, it just wasn't the same as my 61 because it was a newer model Jeep and the flat fenders were the real Jeep when I came back from the family reunion in 1986 and realized we had seen the Jeep and I think we drove it, if I'm not mistaken I know mom and I we did it when we came down the first Christmas after we got married yeah so we drove around in it and the funny thing about it is if the battery dies.

What you had to do is start it and pour some gas into the carburetor the way you did it, you know, I mean, it was as simple and hard to kill as anything else, Luke, okay, let's have some fun, okay, leave that aside. the way yeah, I'd look back at the yeah, I'd look back there, foreigner, okay, stop, good job, Murphy, I came back and said I'm going to buy a Jeep, so there was one at the top of the hill, uh , we turned on, we lived in one. West Main Street in Mountville and if you go down to the bottom there were railroad tracks and then you go up to the top and at the top of the hill there was a house there and a guy had 61 wheelies with a steel top that he had pushed snow or someone had pushed snow and I bought it for 1500 bucks and it had a 283 or 265 V8 and a JC Whitney overdrive and the rear end was completely worn out and the transmission was worn out and I needed help when I bought it 35 years ago thanks uh maybe we'll raise the cable and let's put some stuff under the front wheels, come on, come on, yeah foreigner, keep trying, okay, yeah, it's free, yeah, this is it, tell me some farm memories, oh my god, there used to be an old man barn here, it had two, or three, log cages, that's where they kept the bull in the first one and then the mules in the second two, and you know, They weren't logs, they had holes in them, but they were strong enough to hold to those animals and you know the main hallway went down and then there was a lower level at the back and then there was an upper level at the back and the main Hay Mall. it was upstairs and then we'd go back to that little level, uh, that little addition in the back and we'd play and it was a trap door that went up to the attic and then there was a door a couple doors down in the front. from the barn coming out and that's where we carried the hand and Dan and I used to ride the ponies down this little lane to the barn and we would try to hold on to the header um above the door like they only did in cowboy movies.

We weren't trained riders so we would fall and laugh out loud having fun and then we would go down to the bottom and go up towards his house and the ponies don't run, they just stagger and so we would laugh and he would end up in the pony's neck in front of the legs. , he just laughed so hard that he couldn't stay any longer and he fell and I was laughing following him, we only had one barrel. of fun, but you know this was the site of the original barn.