Milner’s car?

Is this Milner’s car (a ’53 Chrysler wagon)?

John Milner’s ’32 Deuce five-window from “American Graffiti.”

Not John Milner’s gorgeous yellow hotrod that graced “American Graffiti.”
His name was “Mr. Milner,” a mega-rich Dupont vice-president that lived in an estate in Chadds Ford, PA.
The reason I knew him was his son Eric, my age, was in my Sunday-School class.
The December 2013 issue of my Hemmings Classic Car magazine has coverage of Chrysler’s stationwagons, 1949 through ’59.
Before SUVs and minivans, the vehicle-of-choice for the American family was the stationwagon.
With its extended roof you could have inside storage, or even an extra seat.
Prior to 1949, stationwagons were more utility-vehicles with a wooden body built by a separate coach-builder. They weren’t by the car-manufacturer.
The name came from such vehicles assigned to pick up passengers and their luggage at a railroad station.
But in 1949 Plymouth debuted an all-steel stationwagon called the “Suburban.”
Chevrolet also had an all-steel Suburban, but it was based on their truck-chassis. Plymouth’s stationwagon was a car.
Soon all the car-manufacturers were offering all-metal stationwagons, although they often had appliques and trim to make them look like wood; for example Ford’s “Country-Squire.”

A ’57 Ford Country-Squire. (Photo by R.C. Claborne©.)

The magazine had pictures of Chrysler stationwagons, and there was Mr. Milner’s car (not really). His car was a grand Chrysler stationwagon in dark olive-green.
Milner worked for Dupont in Wilmington, DE, Dupont-land. He had about seven cars.
One was a glitzy Mercedes-Benz, one a Jeep, another a Cadillac. He also had a Mercury Comet. His commuter-vehicle-of-choice was that Comet.
But his favorite car was his Chrysler stationwagon.
I had thought the car was a 1951, but the grill doesn’t look right.
So I considered 1952, but that still has the flat two-piece split windshield.
So his car may have been 1953, which has the one-piece curved windshield.

Me at age-15 in 1959 with my first assigned horse, “Barney,” a nag. (Photo probably by J.D. Jenkins.)

During the summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961 I worked at a boys-camp in northeastern MD. I worked as a stablehand. I wasn’t very good riding horse at first, but I got better.
What I really did was riding instruction and supervision of camper riding. I also mucked stalls, and fed the horses.
Our horses were rented nags. Only nags were placid enough for our campers. If a horse proved spunky, it wasn’t a camper horse. It got assigned to stable-staff.

“Rebel” ridden by “Waco.” Waco was a non-smoking Marlboro-man wannabee, a student at Baylor University in Waco, TX. Waco was fired for tossing a knife at a camper, at which time I was assigned “Rebel.” (Photo by J.D. Jenkins.)

My first horse in 1959 was a nag, but in 1960 I was assigned to “Rebel,” an old Tennessee Walking-Horse, big and somewhat challenging. He was dramatic to look at, lanky and tall.
But I got so I could ride him, and he was the neatest horse I ever rode.
Very classy. He’d pick up his hooves as he walked or trotted, a Tennessee Walking-Horse.
He also threw his head a lot. I wanted to buy him, but where to keep him? Dreamin’, as usual.
Rarely did our camp ever own its horses, but for 1961 we did. We had bought the horses from a supplier who would buy them back when camp ended.
But Mr. Milner intervened.
He was mad because the local horsey-set wouldn’t let him join.
So he offered to winter the camp’s horses.
Since I lived nearby, I would advise. (I lived in northern DE at that time.)
It seemed okay to me.


Milner’s barn. (The horse is “Red,” the one I rode, my camp-horse, a mare. She was ornery and difficult, a frequent runaway.) (Photo by BobbaLew.)

He had a nice stone barn with interior stalls.
His estate was also a hobby-farm.
So we planned to go get the horses.
I would meet up with Mr. Milner, drive up to Chadd’s Ford, stay overnight, and get a large stake-truck he had.
I took the bus into Wilmington, and met Mr. Milner at his rented garage. He’d commuted in his Mercedes that day.
We would drive down to camp in his Chrysler stationwagon, followed by the stake-truck.
Milner’s hobby-farm also had farmhands. They would accompany us.
Camp was totally unlike what I knew. It was slanted Fall light, and cool.
The horses were outside quietly grazing their pasture.
Loading was a challenge; a stake-truck isn’t a horse-trailer.
The horses had to climb up onto the stake-body, about three-and-a-half feet off the ground.
We had taken along a four-by-eight sheet of one-inch-thick plywood to use as a ramp, but it promptly shattered.
The truck also broke a rear spring. Eight horses are a lotta weight.
But we got them on, and drove back to Chadd’s Ford, even with the broken spring.
Milner and the horses never worked out. For one thing our horses were western, neck-reiners. The horsey-set was English, bit-reiners. They poo-pooed western riding.
Our tack was also western. All the camp’s saddles and bridals were transferred to Milner’s place in that stationwagon. —I remember touching them all stone-cold in a storage-room in that barn; totally unlike at camp.
The fact Milner had no English tack got the horsey-set nattering.
Beyond that, I insisted on no halters when the horses were grazing. A horse could become entangled in its halter.
So here was a horse out in the field grazing. If he saw you coming with a bridal, or even a halter, he’d split.
For the Milners, horseback-riding was out! —About all he could do was graze ‘em.
And Milner never got the horses into his barn. He built a large open shed downwind from the frigid breezes.
The horses wintered outside, no blankets, stomping around in frozen urine and horse-pucky.
About all that happened was I took a date up there twice and we rode two horses, me bareback.
Meanwhile, Milner was stuck with the horses. I disappeared about Christmas-time.
He never did it again.
But on-the-other-hand I remember his grand Chrysler stationwagon.
Milner loved that car. It projected his self-image of a swashbuckling Teddy Roosevelt wannabee.
But the camp’s horses suffered. Stomping around in the freezing cold in frozen muck to me was horse-abuse.
They were never shod either.

• “J.D. Jenkins” was stable-director at my camp in 1959 and 1960.
• You can always tell what a horse is thinking by its ears. “Rebel” is listening to its rider; “Barney” is paying no attention to me, more to J.D.