Sonora Pass 1950

Sept. 7, 2020

Back somewhere about 1950, our family was trying to get back to Merced over Sonora Pass. We may have gone east over Tioga Pass earlier that day. My mother had a friend from her college days, Esther McMaster, who was the telephone operator in Yosemite Valley then, and we went up to visit her several times. She would give us suggestions on where to drive and what to see. Tuolumne Meadows was one place we visited a couple of times. 

Our father, Vernon Rogers, ran the Kaiser-Frazer Service shop in Merced, and we drove a black Kaiser sedan. Dad liked to take unscheduled trips on weekends, and we toured much of California and Oregon on these trips. It was a wonderful education for us kids, and we learned to appreciate the world around us. 

Bill and I spent many hours kneeling on the back seat at night as we traveled. John rode in the front and slept on long trips in his mother’s lap. He was two, Bill was six, and I was seven years old. Nobody ever heard of seat belts or child seats in those days. 

Our Kaiser was running rough on this trip due to to high altitude. Carburetors couldn’t compensate for altitude and put too much gas into the mixture at high altitudes. The car just didn't have enough power left to get us over the top, and the top of the road was still gravel in those days. About a quarter mile from the top, the road got very steep, and even in low gear the wheels just spun in the gravel. 

Dad had us all get out and walk to the top, in the night with a full moon for light. He backed down a mile or so, and with just him in the car, pedal to the metal, he just barely made it over the top. 

John was just a toddler, and he held Mom’s hand as we hiked to the top. Mom worried aloud about bears and such, but there was none to be seen. The only noise was the sound of the car roaring up the road behind us, drifting around the gravel curves, and finally getting to the top with the momentum collected.

 

I remember as we walked to the top, my mother's sweater collected enough static electricity to have sparks playing around on her as she moved. She tugged on the tail of the sweater and the whole thing crackled and sparkled in the high and dry night air.  

We were all so fascinated by the electric show we forgot to be tired or scared.

We climbed back into the car at the top of Sonora Pass, and went on down the mountain back home