The year was 1943, and, for the U.S., it was the middle of World War II. Carl Pequignot, a 21-year-old Hobart man, was in the Army, stationed somewhere out West, I gather. He had this gag photo taken and made into postcards to send to the home folks.
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He sent this one to a friend, 18-year-old Mary Olive Boudrot, who lived at 753 Garfield Street and preferred to go by her middle name.
Two years later, the war ended. Carl and the rest of the soldiers and sailors from Hobart — those who had survived the war — were able to come back home. Their family and friends breathed a sigh of relief. At last, these young people were safe.
And then this happened.
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Hobart Gazette, 2 May 1946.
The appalling deadliness of the crash was a reminder, to us, of how little the designers and the users of car thought about safety in those days. Structural features that are so familiar to us, like the crumple zone, the safety cage, and the padded dash, didn't exist. Seat belts had been invented, but were not common, and even if Carl's car had any, I'm sure that young men out riding in the wee hours of the night would not have thought of wearing them.
Olive Boudrot was a native of Canada. Her parents, Thomas and Margaret, brought her to the U.S. when she was just a baby. Here she is in 1942 as a senior at Hobart High, known to her classmates as "Frenchy":
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HHS Senior Edition, Hobart High School, 1942.
In August 1946, Olive married Richard Shaw.
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