Lake Placid Woman Recalls Family Friend Henry Ford

Elvina Taylor's father had a classmate in a one-room school house who became a business and manufacturing icon - Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company.

In Dearborn, Mich., now standing on the site of the farm house where Taylor lived as a little girl, sits the Ford World Headquarters.

Taylor's parents and aunts and uncles moved to Dearborn in the late 1800s and bought a series of connecting farms that Ford eventually bought.

From her birth in 1912 until 1918, the now 96-year-old Taylor lived on a farm with Ford being a family friend who lived nearby. At the time, Ford was in his late 40s to early 50s. Ford Motor Company was incorporated in 1903.

One of Taylor's uncles lived on the corner of Reckinger and Ford roads, where his nearest neighbors were Henry and Clara Ford. Reckinger Road, which was named after a relative, is now Southfield Freeway.

"My father and Mr. Ford attended third-grade together and their relationship would last well into adulthood," Taylor said. "My father and some of his brothers helped dig the basement of the Ford's Fairlane residence with their team of horses."

Taylor remembered that one day a beautiful parrot was found in a pear tree on the family farm.

"When Mr. Ford later drove by on his way into Dearborn, my father asked him if the parrot was his, but he said that he did not own a parrot," Taylor said. "About an hour or so later, Mr. Ford returned with a beautiful cage for us to keep the parrot in."

Ford had a fancy for the pies her mom would bake, Taylor said. If he spotted fresh-baked pies cooling on the porch table, he would always stop in and mother would give him a piece of pie and some coffee."

Taylor's younger brother, Eugene, worked for Mrs. Ford in her rose garden until she passed away.

One day, Henry Ford told Taylor's family and her aunts and uncles that he wanted to buy their farms. With the money they received from Ford, they bought newly built homes in town.

Along with being friends and neighbors of the Fords, Taylor's family members were also loyal customers.

"When I was 4 years old, my parents bought one of the early mass-produced Ford Model T's in 1916," Taylor said. "My oldest sister, Elizabeth, got her first job working at the Ford plant in Dearborn earning the famous $5-a-day wage.

The $5-a-day wage, introduced in 1914 by Ford, was about double the amount most comparable workers received at the time. But, the generous wage paid off by attracting experienced mechanics and reducing employee turnover, thus reducing the need for new worker training.

When it came time for Taylor to buy her first car, it was a brand new 1936 Ford Coupe.

Taylor, who now lives in Placid Lakes, became a registered nurse and married Phillip Taylor in 1937. They had three children. Phillip passed away in 1991.

Taylor was an active Nu-Hope volunteer into her early 90s.