Wednesday, January 10, 2007 · Page 19 A Model A Ford from New Brunswick In 1994, Gar Darroch of Burlington, Ont., purchased a well-preserved 1931 Model A Ford Deluxe roadster with 38,000 original miles. This car apparently was never winter driven. The doors fit and close like a 1931 showroom example. It has never suffered rust or collision damage. Even the frame has no pits! The fender beads are perfect. The engine's compression is like new, and the engine has never been rebuilt. The car was assembled at the Toronto Ford plant at Danforth and Victoria Park in the late winter or early spring of 1931. Its exceptional condition inspired Darroch to learn about its past. After more than five years of extensive research, including trips to both the west and east coast, as well as national newspaper advertising, an amazing story has come to light. Sussex Motors in Sussex, N.B., sold Darroch's roadster new to Ada Gertrude Titus-Lake (1873-1964), a private duty nurse who worked in Brookline, Mass. and spent her summers in Sussex. She was 58 when she bought the Model A and it was her summer transportation only. When she returned to the Boston area every September, she had the roadster professionally prepared for winter storage in her home garage. Ada had no children and she pampered her Model A, the one car she owned in her lifetime, until she was 81. She sold the car in 1954. Fortunately all four owners since then have also taken excellent care of Ada's car. Darroch has now owned it over ten years and continues to give it the care it so richly deserves. The research conducted by Darroch on the history of this car has included documenting the memories of Ada's many friends who were children at the time she owned the car. These individuals are now in their senior years. They recall Ada's kindness to them and being taken for rides in her car. The favourite seat for them was the rumble seat. One telephone call to Darroch from New Brunswick began with these words: "I carried groceries from your car into Ada's house many times when I was a boy." When Ada died in 1964, her two photo albums were sent to her surviving sister in Vancouver. Sadly, these photo albums went missing in 1989 after being handed down through two more generations of family relatives. Luckily, Darroch persisted in his quest and was rewarded on a trip to Burnaby, B.C. in 1997 with the discovery of the photo you see here of Ada sitting by the dog on the running board of her car when it was nearly new. She is with friends in this lovely, unposed, captured moment. Henry Ford built over four million Model As from 1928 to 1931. This has been the story of one of them. Do you have any car stories to share with our readers? Email: bill@carstory.com. CARSTORY I S SPONSORED BY Your Security. Our Responsibility. Atom A Forest Machine On Dec. 19 the Ravens travelled to Belle River to take on the Rink Rats. Belle River opened the scoring at the 7:35 mark and held the lead 1-0 going into the second period. Essex tied the game 1-1 in the second with Hook netting the twine on a nice pass rom Wuerchy and Derrick orris. However 28 seconds ater the Rats would take the ead at the 4:07 mark. The third period started ith a two man advantage or Belle River. Strong penalty killing by Adam Zanier and Dillon Jarvis kept the Rats off the board. 11:32 mark of the third period saw Dalton "Langer" Langlois breakout alone to net one and tie the game at two a piece. Essex would run out of gas as the Rats managed to score three more goals in the last four minutes of the third period. Final 5-2 Belle River. Dec. 22 Essex travelled to Leamington to take on Southpoint. The first period saw goalie Kyle Hill make some outstanding saves. With defensive help of A.J., Sean, Derek and Jeff, end to end action would finish the first period scoreless on both sides. Southpoint opened the second period at the 8:25 mark to take a 1-0 lead. Some strong forechecking by Brett Rickeard, Hook and Wuerchy resulted in Hook going in alone on a breakaway. However, Hook could not get one past the Southpoint goalie. Essex finally evened the score on a goal from Adam Zanier at 6:42. Southpoint once again took the lead 1:05 later as they snuck one past Kyle. In the final couple of seconds Essex would escape down by one goal. Southpoint took an early lead to go up 3-1 in the third period. At the 12:20 mark Rickeard went end to end and roofed one to get Essex within one. It was not to be once again as Southpoint would go on to cruise to a 6-2 victory. The Atom A team competed in the Hospice Tournament held over the Christmas Break with our first game against Riverside in Amherstburg. The Riverside team came out flying and was quickly up one goal. Josh played admirably in net and the boys fought hard but with no luck. The puck didn't bounce our way. The final score was 4-0. The next day the boys played London at Forest Glade Arena and our boys were eager for a win. At 6:29 of the first period William made a beautiful pass to Jordy who fired it past the London goalie. The London team came back in the second period to tie up the game. At 5:13 of the third London scored to take the lead. This did not sit well with our boys. They played well defensively and Kyle kept us in the game until Salty and Jonah set up Huddy to take a quick shot to find the top corner of the net. The game ended in a 2-2 tie against a very strong London team. Way to go boys! The next game was against the Jr. Spitfires at the Tecumseh arena where we needed to win every period to advance to the finals. We came out skating hard, exchanging scoring chances with Windsor, but neither team found the mesh in the first. Windsor scored quickly in the second to take the first lead of the game but the forward line of Feurth , Salter and Hudvagner quickly tied it back up. It wasn't until 5:24 of the third that Windsor scored again. The boys didn't give up and con- tinued to try to generate scoring opportunities but the game ended in a 2-1 loss. Even though we didn't make it to the finals our boys won the Hospice pledge award for the most pledges in our division. Way to go Ravens! Saturday afternoon at Riverside arena, the Rangers got the first good chance but Josh Myers stifled the shooter with a right pad stop. With a face off deep in the Rangers' end Jarvis Jr. won the draw and got off a shot that was tipped by W. Wuerch as he drove to the net to give Essex a 1-0 lead. A three on two resulted in Adam drilling one off the goalie's mask, Huddy getting the rebound and a shot and Adam getting that rebound and scoring high into the glove side corner to put Essex up 2-0. Hook picked up a missed shot and did a semi wrap around for a beautiful goal to cap a very energetic shift and give Essex a 3-0 lead.While still trying hard the Rangers got a breakaway in the third. and poked it in to cut our lead to 3-1. Jimmy Jarv got a nice birthday present with the fourth goal of the game. Zany Zanier claimed the final goal for a 5-1 win. Things didn't start off well for Essex in game two of the weekend as the LaSalle Sabres struck first one minute in. The Ravens came out flying to start the second with Brett Rickeard, Wheels Wuerch and Jordie Hook Jr. applying constant pressure but they couldn't buy one. With four on four, eight minutes in Jonah cut in alone and missed stick side by inches. Shortly after the Sabres scored a powerplay goal to go up 2-0. Essex worked hard after this with excellent rushes by Brett and Wheels but LaSalle caught a break and went up 3-0 after the second. The third got off to a rocky start. The boys kept working hard and were rewarded when Huddy got off a nice shot and Brett got the rebound to cut the lead to 3-1.The Ravens kept the pressure on but couldn't buy one. Final: 3-1 Sabres.