Seventy-two years ago today, you could, given half a mind, drive up to the front entrance of the White House in your 1921 Model T, and baffle Capitol Police by demanding to see Henry Ford. “Where’s Henry?” shouted Ernest A. Franke, a 90-year-old retired baker, from the driver’s seat. “I want to show him his old car.”
Ford, at the time, was with Edsel in the bulletproof Lincoln of Attorney General Homer S. Cummings, on his way to meet President Roosevelt.
Informed that Ford wasn’t there, police declined to let Franke hang out until his arrival, Franke motored away, returning a few hours later, but again missing Ford. Of Franke and his Ford, no record today remains.