Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

In the 1940s, cars were on the upswing. They were becoming more common, leading to what some consider a golden age of cars in the 1950s. In 1940, people were purchasing them, and companies were making more and more of them. The first car in Lock Haven was owned by Thomas Brown Stewart in 1902, and things took off from there.

Automobiles got so prevalent that Frank Vincent Sharp decided to take a ride in one.
The problem was that he was two years old at the time.

Frank Sharp lived at 741 Bellefonte Avenue, near the top of the hill. He was two and a half on July 7, 1940, living with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank S. Sharp. His father had a coupe, which is a two-door passenger car. (I had to look that up.) As opposed to a sedan, which seems to have more doors. The car was parked near the house, because why wouldn’t it be?

And, at about four in the afternoon, little Frank decided to get curious. He climbed into the car to check things out, because safety wasn’t invented until 1976. (I remember, as a child, my father catching me in an attempt to climb out our third-story window with a rope. He said,”If you’re gonna do that, turn off the air conditioning. I am not paying to cool down this whole farm.”)

While playing in the car, he released the emergency brake, creating a genuine emergency.

“The child climbed into the coupe of his father, Frank S. Sharp, parked in front of their home at 741 Bellefonte Avenue, and released the emergency brake,” the newspaper article explained the next day. “The automobile drifted backwards down the avenue to South Summit Street.”

The article also referred to the bumpy, backward ride as “the thrill of his brief lifetime.”

When this line says “brief,” it means “so far.” Let me clear the suspense—There were no fatalities. Little Frank survived his ride and was fine. Bellefonte Avenue also seems to have survived, though I have to mention that during this era, it seems to have been an oddly dangerous spot in the city. I am almost continuously finding old articles about cars and kids colliding, all the way down the Bellefonte Avenue hill. During the winter, kids sledded down there, right in the middle of the road, because, again, safety was not anyone’s biggest priority during those days. Between Spring Street and Commerce Street was basically a death trap, with people getting hit, run over, or having very close calls at least weekly. Frank Sharp was not the only kid to have something like this experience, is what I’m saying.

The car rolled backward, going over the curb and then into peoples’ lawns, probably giving them a serious shock as it rolled past their living room windows. It finally came to a rest up against the porch steps of William Fredericks, 660 Bellefonte Avenue, having rolled for more than a block.

Little Frank didn’t even remain in the car the entire time. A quick-witted passerby reacted, grabbing him from the car as it rolled up onto the curb. There wasn’t too much he could do about stopping the car itself, but at least he made sure the child was safe, putting him at least fifty years ahead of his time.

The car, in the end, had its right door torn off, and the left rear fender was damaged. The newspaper put the total damage at fifteen dollars, which is sixteen thousand by today’s standards. (These days, you can’t replace one of those little scented Christmas trees on your rearview mirror for fifteen dollars.) The car got repaired, Frank was okay, and I got a column out of this. So everything worked out okay.