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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

MA WINS A NEW CAR

In 1935 the Chrysler Motor Company advertised nation-wide for people to make up sales slogans that
the company could use in their advertising. Being an opportunist, and also being quite clever and
creative, ma entered the contest about making up a slogan and submitting it. The first prize was a brand
new dodge automobile, and the second prize was a brand new 1936 Plymouth four door sedan.

Ma’s slogan look second prize nation-wide, and they had soon delivered to her a light green-colored
four door brand new 1936 Plymouth automobile. Now in 1936 most people didn’t even have cars, being
the very depth of the great depression, and extremely few people had brand new cars. So when we drove
that 1936 Plymouth down the street you can bet that we turned a lot of heads and I supposed people
wondered how we got it but I guess the word soon went around that Pearl Dicks had won it in a slogan
contest. Chrysler Motor Company used those slogans for years in their advertising, and I’m sure most of
the readers of this book have seen it. The slogan ma submitted was “Dodge Builds Great Cars”.
Something so simple but so effective.

Another way that Pearl Dicks was innovative and inventive was in connection with her raising white
leghorn chickens for eggs. She had daddy build her several small chicken houses, in which the chickens
would roost at about 125 to 150 per house, and nesting places built into the side of the house with pine
straw in them where the chickens would go to lay their eggs.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, Clay Electric Co-Op built power lines all over Southern Columbia
County and we were fortunate enough to be located on one of the roads down which the power lines ran.
Therefore, it was not long until we had electricity. As soon as ma heard that we were going to have
electricity she did several things. One thing that she had done was to have daddy purchase a brand new
refrigerator, (all of which were known as Frigidaire’s) and set it in the kitchen where it could be plugged
in as soon as we had power. She had the house wired from one end to the other and she had light
fixtures put in every room. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the power company to flip the switch
and turn the power on to all of us country folks.

When that day happened, the power was turned on right after lunch one day when Opal and Fay were at
school, but I suppose 1 did not go to school that day because 1 was at home when they turned the power
on, and in a short while ma and pa got in the car and all 3 of us rode up to Lake City on some type of
errand. It was slightly after dark when we got home and there was my sister Fay sprawled out on the
living room floor, as was her custom, doing all of her school homework by lamp light. Ma and pa and I
came in the front door and ma said “Fay what are you doing down there on the floor with that old lamp
trying to study? Why don’t you use the lights?” At that time ma triumphantly flipped the light switch
and the lights came on and lighted up that room in a way that we had never ever seen it lit before. Of

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