From the newspaper article “Devil Wagon Days” by Dorothy V. Walters, for the Milwaukee Journal:
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“…For women to drive was quite unusual, but in the summer of 1903 Mrs. George Rowe and Mrs. Nettie Hoyt drove from Beaver Dam to Milwaukee in a three-day trip. This feat received much publicity in Milwaukee papers of that day. The machine which they used is now in the possession of the Dodge County Historical Society. It was a Rambler purchased from The Thomas B. Jeffery Company of Kenosha. Like all but the de luxe early models, it had neither horn nor headlights, and like its contemporaries, it needed frequent repairs…”.
note: Italics added by Route 66 Rambler. The author has incorrectly named the firm, a common mistake. It was in fact Thomas B. Jeffery & Company… The Thomas B. Jeffery Company would be the name of a later, incorporated version of this company, established in 1910, after the founder’s death. -mike
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The newspaper article above was written in 1946. That same Rambler is still at the Dodge County Historical Society…
These pics are from a web page there, and apparently the car still did not have headlights, but that has been fixed. I’m guessing that a husband removed them to keep the girls from making the trip. 
http://www2.powercom.net/%7Edchs/Rambler%20Headlights.htm
This car is nonstandard in a couple of ways. For one, look at the size of those wheels. They’re huge when compared to a normal 1902 Rambler of that time, shown here…
For the other, it’s using an open chain drive with a huge gear to drive the rear end. They usually had enclosed rears, and with quite a bit physically smaller rear gear, as seen on this 1903 Model E.
At any rate, from these mods, it looks to me like these ladies were into some SERIOUS hardcore Wheelin’… If I was a hundred years younger, I’d be in love. 
mike
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 11:30 am and is filed under Rambler Heritage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.