Bill Schulz recently sent along this photo which he inherited, but which came with absolutely no information that would help him identify the car in it. Bill writes:
If the photo’s from my mother’s side, it’s probably in the Kerhonkson, NY, area. If my father’s, probably somewhere around Poughkeepsie/Pleasant Valley, NY.
That is probably my paternal grandmother on the other side of the road as I’m sure no finely dressed woman would have been standing in a field out in the puckerbrush all by herself; “It’s just not proper!” “Gramps” probably heard the car coming and crossed the road to take the picture, leaving his bride to wait in safety there.
“Gramps” was William Rudolph Schulz, “Granma,” Marie Augusta Heinken “Gussie” Schulz. My father, William John Schulz (I’m “Junior”) was born in Pleasant Valley in 1908.
As it just so happens, the excellent and wide-ranging pre-war auto racing thread on the H.A.M.B. recently included a couple photos of Walter White’s 1905 Vanderbilt Cup racer, which matches the shape and details of the car in Bill’s photo. A little googling, and we see that in 1905, Walter White punctured his left front tire on the Guinea Woods turn on the fifth lap of the race and continued to run on the bare rim. The photo above isn’t clear, but it appears to show a bare left front rim. That looks like a slow left-hand turn in the background; could Gramps have caught White’s steamer very shortly after its tire burst?
VanderbiltCupRaces.com also has a map of the entire 1905 race course, so I’m wondering if we could even pinpoint exactly where Gramps snapped this photo. Perhaps somewhere on Glen Cove Road just north of where the LIE currently crosses it?