We’re just connecting the dots.
VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 8 • November 30, 2022
hello FROM KRISTI
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hen I was growing up, our family vacations were centered around Model A trips and conferences. We traveled across the country in my dad’s 1929 station wagon; our first trip was to Reno, Nevada. Sounds like a great trip, right? Well, we left McAllen in August and drove through the desert in an unairconditioned vehicle! I was only 10 years old at the time, so it was an adventure for sure, but my mother didn’t quite feel the same way! My dad’s love of the Model A took me all over the state… and the country. My most memorable trip was to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and we got to see the Packers practice! I have a passion for all things Wisconsin, and I’m sure that trip is responsible for planting this love. We were always invited to participate in parades, and the City of McAllen’s 4th of July Parade was always something we did with the local Model A group. There’s nothing quite like taking a ride along a country road in a Model A, with the wind whipping through your hair, smiles and waves from passersby, and the gentle sound of the engine running. And then there’s the melody of the horn…Aoogah…a sound I never get tired of hearing. ~We’re just connecting the dots. •
Kristi THANK YOU TO OUR 2022-2023 SEASON SPONSORS
A Promise Kept
The nearly restored 1931 Ford Model A. Story and photos by Eryn Reddell Wingert
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years ago, Welcome Home RGV owner Kristi Collier sold the remnants of a 1931 Ford Model A Woody Wagon to Tim Peterson of Wisconsin. The items had belonged to her father, Tim Johnstone, a wellknown car collector who passed in 2019. In no hurry to sell, she took her time to find a buyer who would cherish the project and put the time in to restore and enjoy it. “God
works in mysterious ways,” she says, regarding the initial call from Peterson. Peterson’s home sits on a lake near Siren, Wisconsin. She knew Siren. Three years prior, Collier fell in love with the town while touring the Midwest to promote South Texas to winter visitors. Peterson told Collier he wanted the Wagon so he could take his grandkids down to the dairy for ice cream. She knew that dairy. The Burnett Dairy, where she had been
aghast with all the cheese options; she shipped a box back home to McAllen years before. Collier could immediately picture the entire scene he laid out. “I knew he was the person who should have it.” Peterson travelled to McAllen, Texas, loaded up the bits and pieces, boxes, notes, and individually tagged baggies filled with tiny parts into a A PROMISE KEPT CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 >>