MOTORING MEMORIES
A family that runs on road trips
My grandfather Samuel T. Baldwin was born in 1880 in Bonsack, Virginia. He was a yard conductor for the Norfolk and Western Railway Co., a position that gave him and his family travel privileges. Samuel and my grandmother Mattie Davis Baldwin traveled by train to the first Jamestown Exposition in Norfolk in 1907. They also went to a national convention in Washington, D.C., and in 1933 they took my mother, Edith, to the world’s fair in Chicago.
My family has never been content to sit still. My mother, born in 1910, learned to drive a Ford Model T when she was 15. Thousands of miles away, in Lehi, Utah, my father, John, was determined to drive one as well. He was only
12, and he and a friend drove the car together, pushing pedals and steering. My parents were married in 1936, and although my mother gave up driving for a while, she took it up again when my father was drafted into the Army Air Corps during World War II.
In 1940, my parents took a lengthy trip, driving a 1938 Ford sedan from Maryland to Utah—and beyond—to visit my father’s family. They made the trip with me, age 3,
my Grandmother Mattie and my great-aunt Annie Davis. The 35-day trip covered 8,000
miles; perched on the drive shaft, I wore out the carpet. We stopped at many sites, including Boulder Dam (officially Hoover Dam), the Grand Canyon and two world’s fairs—in New York and San Francisco .
The travel bug has spread to me and my wife, Carol. We’ve visited all 50 states and five Canadian provinces. As a member of the Extra Miler Club, I’ve visited more than 3,000 counties, boroughs and parishes in North America.
Now another generation is involved in the family activity: My grandson Sage and I got to fly in a B-29, just like those my father trained in during World War II.
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