MOM: The Family Van

Jan 2011 Issue

By Nettie H. Francis
I have a New Year’s Resolution: This year we will buy a van. Not just any van – a twelve passenger, all wheel drive, five door, three bench vehicle; in other words, a Family Van. When I called the car dealer and gave him my dream van description, he was incredulous.

“Do you a run a daycare?” He asked.

“No,” I replied. “I run a family.”

Memories of a family van flow from my childhood. There were eleven children, so driving together was a challenge. Once when we were in need of a new vehicle, we acquired two totaled vans. The first was a brown Volkswagen van with a wrecked exterior, yet the interior seats were nearly new. The second van was a blue Volkswagen with a great exterior, yet the inside was empty. My parents bought them both at a great price, with the idea that we would combine the two, and have a good family van.

Every Saturday that summer we spent unscrewing seats, seatbelts, visors, handles, and everything useable from inside of the brown van, and installing it in the blue van. We scrubbed and cleaned the blue van until it was like new.

Finally, the combined van was finished. We inspected it from top to bottom, trying out everything. The best part was the sun-roof, which opened by a crank-handle and caused the people sitting in the middle seat to feel as if they were in a hurricane, while those in the back and front seats felt only a light breeze.

The next morning we loaded the van for a trip to Grandma’s, two states away.
After a prayer, Daddy ceremoniously put the key into the ignition and turned it.
Nothing. No sound, no sputtering, just silence. We were stunned, so Daddy tried again. Still, nothing. He tried again and again.

Finally he pulled the key out of the ignition and pressed the starter button. The engine roared. Surprise! We didn’t need a key to start the van after all! We cheered as Daddy put the van in gear and we chug-chugged our way down the street. “Beep, beep, beep!”

We headed north, and soon were on the road to Idaho. As we hit the freeway,
Daddy put the van into high gear. The stick shift wouldn’t stay in position by itself, and it was uncomfortable to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the stick in place, but my Dad had a solution. Using a bungee cord, and with Mama holding the stick, he hooked one end around the stick shift while the person on the middle bench seat secured the other end under the bench. This set-up was purely inspirational. It worked marvelously until the driver had to shift back to low gear, and then once again all three people were necessary to unhook the cord from the stick in time to shift.

Despite our van’s idiosyncrasies, we talked, laughed, and sang for the first few hours. Then we hit a hill. The engine overheated, and soon we were stopped by the side of the road. “Let’s turn around now and go home,” Mama said.

Daddy wouldn’t hear of it. Instead he checked the engine in the rear, and discovered that if he left the hood open, it wouldn’t over-heat. This solved the problem, and we drove the rest of the way to Idaho with the engine hatch up. People drove by and honked to let us know it was open, and we smiled and waved and kept going.

We arrived safely in Idaho that night. The next morning was Sunday. We drove to church through miles of sugar beets. Just as we saw the church building in the distance, the horn on the van started beeping every time Daddy turned the wheel. Turn, “Beep.” Turn, “Beep.” Turn, “Beep.”

As long as he drove straight, the horn was silent. We were on the wrong road right by some houses at this point, and Daddy had to turn the van around.
Turn, “Beep.” Turn, “Beep.” The sound echoed through the quiet Sunday morning. No matter how much we coaxed and pleaded, the horn wouldn’t cooperate, and we beep-beeped right into the church parking lot, just in time for everyone to watch 10 visitors climb out of the blue/brown van.

We arrived the following night in Boise, Idaho. As we waited at a stoplight, we heard a tremendous “BANG!” and lurched forward in our seats. We had been rear-ended by a teenage driver. The police arrived, and we watched sadly from the sidewalk as our van was towed away. We had been hit right on the engine, just enough to total our van, but not enough to hurt anyone.

With the money the insurance company gave us, my parents bought the van back. It still worked, and we decided to take a chance and continue to Washington State. At the bottom of every hill we prayed and chanted, “go, car go!” up to the top of every hill where we cheered and coasted down the other side. Daddy drove the van right into Grandma’s driveway in Washington, where the engine died, never to start again. The next day Daddy pushed our van out of the driveway, and rolled it down the hill to a car lot.

Strangely enough, the car dealer traded the old, blue Volkswagen (and the extra cash from the insurance company) for a beautiful, new van. When Daddy arrived at Grandma’s home that night in the shiny van, we couldn’t believe our eyes. It was so new, so plush, and all ours! We did have to give up the sunroof for side windows; but the roomy, soft seats and double bed in the back of the van were worth it. Needless to say, our neighbors were very impressed when we arrived home from our trip in our brand new van.

My family van experience as a child taught me that when we do our part, the Lord always provides for us. I’m holding onto that hope now as we search for our own family van; the one with three benches, twelve seatbelts, all wheel drive, and five doors. I hope we don’t have to combine two vehicles—or experience a car wreck—to discover it. But, I do know—daycare or not—we will find the perfect family van.