Vintage Cars and the Lives They Lead
July 27, 2022
Milford and Sandy Baker with their 1964 Chevrolet Impala
Ezra DeVore
It was 1966 when Milford Baker first set eyes on the ‘64 Impala that would define his adult life.
In August of 1964, the Impala was purchased by a man named Charles Foxworthy while in the US Air Force, stationed in Delaware. Foxworthy would be sent to Vietnam in the spring of 1965, and “When he was going to have to go to Vietnam,” says Milford, Foxworthy asked his sister and brother-in-law, who lived in Barry County, to “come out, get his car, and sell it for him.” Grantham Earle, Foxworthy’s brother-in-law, happened to work with Milford at Johnston’s, a variety store once on the Cassville square.
“Grantham came into work one morning and said ‘I got the car that you need.’ I was going to Southwest Missouri State University and said ‘Grantham, I can’t afford a car.’”
After some persuading, however, Milford states that he later decided to do his friend the favor of looking at the car.
“Of course, when I went down to look at that car,” Milford says, “I fell in love with it. I thought it was beautiful. Of course, once you like something real well, you go to the trouble of buying it.”
Milford says it took him nearly three years to fully pay the price tag of $2,375, worth just over $20,000 today. “I drove it through the years I went to college,” he says, “and then, met my wife, and we dated in the car.”
Milford met his future wife, Sandy, one day in 1967 when she came into Johnston’s with a friend, “and the day I saw her,” Milford says, “it was like the day I saw that car. I fell in love.”
Milford and Sandy would date from the summer of 1967 until the summer of 1969, when Milford, like Grantham’s brother-in-law, was drafted to go to Vietnam.
He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in south-central Missouri, and then to Fort Sam Houston in south Texas for his medical training. Milford arrived in Vietnam in January of 1970 as a soldier in the US Army, and would spend the next fourteen months 9,000 miles from home, tending to the wounded during the first deescalation years of the war.
American involvement in Vietnam had been a rising tide of governmental effort since the months leading up to Japan’s WW2 defeat in 1945, escalating slowly for a variety of factors until 1955, the commonly agreed upon date of official conflict beginning. During Milford’s time overseas, the level of armed conflict that the war had seen in the late 1960s was waning, though at home, demonstrations against the war continued to be performed.
Milford would return from Vietnam in March of 1971 and marry Sandy on April 16 the same year.
“I didn’t want to get married until I got back from Vietnam,” he says. “In case something happened to me over there, I didn’t want her to have to go through losing a husband.”
The couple elected to celebrate by taking the Impala to Florida for their honeymoon. Milford says the newlyweds were planning to drive the 8,400 miles of Florida’s coastline. “Our intentions were to drive all the way around the tip of Florida - that’s a long trip. We got down around St. Petersburg, and we’d been out on the beach for a day or two, got sunburned, and we decided to just head back home. So we came back home. And that was our honeymoon in that old car.”
Milford would then work for Family Services for 28 years after his military service, driving the Impala everyday to work for the next 11.
The car was far more than a tool to get to work, however. “It’s been in some rough places,” Milford remembers. “I been on the back roads to see some people who live back in the hills here, and I remember getting hung up in a creek down in Seligman. I couldn’t get out, so I had to walk back to the house up the road, and the guy had an old tractor, and when we got back, the back of the car was in the creek, and the water was running though the trunk!” Milford laughed, “I thought, ‘Man, it’s ruining my car!’ But, it’s all fixable. There’s been a lot of ups and downs, but we survived them all - with God’s mercy.”
Milford explains that in 1987, Sandy had taken their two daughters to go shopping one afternoon, and the car wouldn’t start when they were leaving. “It’s time to get a new car,” Sandy said.
The Impala would be parked in the Bakers’ barn from 1987 until 2011, when the couple decided to have it refurbished. The vehicle underwent repairs from May of 2011 until early November of 2012. “It looked better than it did brand new,” Milford says.
Now, Milford enjoys being a grandfather and the pastor of Mineral Springs Baptist Church in Cassville, as well as driving the Impala to the Cassville Cruise-Ins outside of the Cassville Museum. Milford and Sandy Baker have lived in the same Cassville home since 1976, building and remodeling over the decades.
“It’s a nice automobile,” he says. “Every time I look at it, or get in it, why, it brings back a lot of memories of things we did in it through the years.”
It was 1966 when Milford Baker first set eyes on the ‘64 Impala that would define his adult life.
In August of 1964, the Impala was purchased by a man named Charles Foxworthy while in the US Air Force, stationed in Delaware. Foxworthy would be sent to Vietnam in the spring of 1965, and “When he was going to have to go to Vietnam,” says Milford, Foxworthy asked his sister and brother-in-law, who lived in Barry County, to “come out, get his car, and sell it for him.” Grantham Earle, Foxworthy’s brother-in-law, happened to work with Milford at Johnston’s, a variety store once on the Cassville square.
“Grantham came into work one morning and said ‘I got the car that you need.’ I was going to Southwest Missouri State University and said ‘Grantham, I can’t afford a car.’”
After some persuading, however, Milford states that he later decided to do his friend the favor of looking at the car.
“Of course, when I went down to look at that car,” Milford says, “I fell in love with it. I thought it was beautiful. Of course, once you like something real well, you go to the trouble of buying it.”
Milford says it took him nearly three years to fully pay the price tag of $2,375, worth just over $20,000 today. “I drove it through the years I went to college,” he says, “and then, met my wife, and we dated in the car.”
Milford met his future wife, Sandy, one day in 1967 when she came into Johnston’s with a friend, “and the day I saw her,” Milford says, “it was like the day I saw that car. I fell in love.”
Milford and Sandy would date from the summer of 1967 until the summer of 1969, when Milford, like Grantham’s brother-in-law, was drafted to go to Vietnam.
He was sent to Fort Leonard Wood in south-central Missouri, and then to Fort Sam Houston in south Texas for his medical training. Milford arrived in Vietnam in January of 1970 as a soldier in the US Army, and would spend the next fourteen months 9,000 miles from home, tending to the wounded during the first deescalation years of the war.
American involvement in Vietnam had been a rising tide of governmental effort since the months leading up to Japan’s WW2 defeat in 1945, escalating slowly for a variety of factors until 1955, the commonly agreed upon date of official conflict beginning. During Milford’s time overseas, the level of armed conflict that the war had seen in the late 1960s was waning, though at home, demonstrations against the war continued to be performed.
Milford would return from Vietnam in March of 1971 and marry Sandy on April 16 the same year.
“I didn’t want to get married until I got back from Vietnam,” he says. “In case something happened to me over there, I didn’t want her to have to go through losing a husband.”
The couple elected to celebrate by taking the Impala to Florida for their honeymoon. Milford says the newlyweds were planning to drive the 8,400 miles of Florida’s coastline. “Our intentions were to drive all the way around the tip of Florida - that’s a long trip. We got down around St. Petersburg, and we’d been out on the beach for a day or two, got sunburned, and we decided to just head back home. So we came back home. And that was our honeymoon in that old car.”
Milford would then work for Family Services for 28 years after his military service, driving the Impala everyday to work for the next 11.
The car was far more than a tool to get to work, however. “It’s been in some rough places,” Milford remembers. “I been on the back roads to see some people who live back in the hills here, and I remember getting hung up in a creek down in Seligman. I couldn’t get out, so I had to walk back to the house up the road, and the guy had an old tractor, and when we got back, the back of the car was in the creek, and the water was running though the trunk!” Milford laughed, “I thought, ‘Man, it’s ruining my car!’ But, it’s all fixable. There’s been a lot of ups and downs, but we survived them all - with God’s mercy.”
Milford explains that in 1987, Sandy had taken their two daughters to go shopping one afternoon, and the car wouldn’t start when they were leaving. “It’s time to get a new car,” Sandy said.
The Impala would be parked in the Bakers’ barn from 1987 until 2011, when the couple decided to have it refurbished. The vehicle underwent repairs from May of 2011 until early November of 2012. “It looked better than it did brand new,” Milford says.
Now, Milford enjoys being a grandfather and the pastor of Mineral Springs Baptist Church in Cassville, as well as driving the Impala to the Cassville Cruise-Ins outside of the Cassville Museum. Milford and Sandy Baker have lived in the same Cassville home since 1976, building and remodeling over the decades.
“It’s a nice automobile,” he says. “Every time I look at it, or get in it, why, it brings back a lot of memories of things we did in it through the years.”
