Buying Their First Car

May 2, 1930  Jacob sowed wheat in the afternoon, and John harrowed.  We bought a car from Peter U. Brandt for $567.00.  The license plate cost $13.00.

After Cornelius and Margaret got married in March, they returned to Canada for Cornelius to wrap up his affairs and for Margaret to meet his relatives.  Before this, Cornelius apparently had not owned a car because they were very poor.  But Margaret had been a single lady who owned two quarters of farm land and was a good manager of money, so she had enough money to buy a car. 

Peter Brandt was Cornelius’ second cousin and had a dealership that sold Ford cars and Fordson tractors in the area.  If this is the same car that Cornelius sold in 1936 (he does not mention buying a car between 1930 and 1936 – see this entry), the car that he bought from Peter Brandt was a Model T Touring.  

This would have been a major change for Cornelius and his family.  First, Cornelius and the boys had to learn to drive, maintain, and repair a car, which was entirely different than working with horses.  The system of controls on the Model T was a lot more complicated than even the modern manual transmission, so this would have been a real challenge.  But the Siemens would have been one of the last to buy a car since most families had one by this time.  He had surely noticed as his neighbors bought cars during the 1920s, but he and his children had struggled to survive in poverty.  Now he finally had a car.