The Summer Road Trip that Reshaped My Mother
By Monica Chenault-Kilgore
In the summer of 1964, my mother officially received her driver’s license in the state of Ohio. It took her four times to pass, but when she finally did, she bought a black, 1964 AMC Rambler American with a red and black interior, and then announced we would take a summer road trip from Cincinnati to Cleveland to visit her cousin.
The new car was front-porch fodder for our neighbors, especially considering its owner was a newly divorced, single mother of three children, who had to cope without a husband. Life had not been easy for her. She was an only child of a father who worked as a Pullman porter in Chicago and a pretty mother who would occasionally forget that she had a daughter and often handed her off to others. Despite being brought up in scattered households, my mother was able to excel in school. She was one of the few Black graduates of Walnut Hills High School, an institution for Cincinnati’s brightest and most talented children. She went to college with the dream of obtaining a fine arts degree but only got as far as money would allow, which was one year of classes.
Now, what she wanted most was to give her children the stable life she never had, and she was determined to prove to any nay-sayers wrong.
By all accounts, it was a contentious divorce, though I didn’t know the exact details. I remember my mother’s brown eyes wide with worry when she told me, “Your father will no longer live with us.” She likely anticipated a burst of tears, but I only nodded in response. In my mind, my daddy would still come and make pancakes on Saturdays. I would still help him dig in the backyard garden, planting Black-eyed Susans and taming the marching mint. I would still get to wear my prettiest dress and put a Vaseline shine on my legs to take the bus downtown where I’d meet my daddy for lunch at his job as a shipping clerk at Dunlap’s. I didn’t ask whether any of this was true because I was sure nothing would change. Even though my father hadn’t returned, the shiny new car and the trip to Cleveland signaled that we were still a family and we were safe.
On the first day of the trip, there were screams and cries of unfair treatment and a tussle on the sidewalk between me and my brothers before one child was selected to sit, proudly, in the front seat of the car. I was so excited that I didn’t mind losing out to the back. We were bound for a city that bordered not just a lake, but a Great Lake. I pushed my nose against the window and watched the landscape slip by. My mother, unbothered by the seating skirmish and the fidgeting, shouted, “Here we go!”
She insisted we take the back roads to avoid trucks and careless speed demons. We traveled a route outlined on an unwieldy and heavily creased map of Ohio: two hundred and fifty miles of two-lane highway between cornfields, patches of grazing cows and horses, and ramshackle farmhouses painted with peeling Mail Pouch advertisements. We traveled at a pace so slow that even farmers on sputtering tractors were passing us.
Maybe it was the hum of the car or the city scenery fading into lonely houses interrupting the rows of farmland, but my brothers and I finally settled into our roles as well-behaved passengers, calling out farm animals and rural route signs along the way. The Rambler All Transistor radio contained all the music, farm reports, and bible scriptures we needed.
We were just a few miles past Columbus when my mother decided she had reached her limit. The sun had begun its descent toward the horizon. We started our trek too late. The stops for gas and traveling at a pace where I could almost hear each revolution of the tires had taken us nearly three hours to reach that point. I couldn’t blame my mother. As a novice driver, she was just trying to keep her children safe.
We stopped at Bun’s restaurant in Delaware, Ohio, for burgers and the thickest, most flavorful milkshakes I’ve ever had. Afterward, my mother found a roadside motel. The room was the last in a row of red doors, shrouded in darkness. The only sounds were the crunch of gravel under our feet and the crickets rubbing their lazy legs in the tall grass behind the building. My brothers and I thought the room was pure luxury with crisp air conditioning and television. My mother did not. She prudently placed a chair under the door handle as soon as we stepped inside.
What she wanted most was to give her children the stable life she never had, and she was determined to prove to any nay-sayers wrong.
The next day we continued onward to Cleveland. The road soon transformed into a real expressway that crossed over the tallest bridge I’d ever seen. Fear gripped my body as the world grew small beneath us. I envisioned our brand-new car crashing through the rails and plunging one trillion feet into the water. I was sure I was going to miss my next birthday. Why did I have the front seat now? A wave of bravery made me open my eyes. Wrong move. My mother had the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. It was the first time I saw all my mother’s nerves—not just the last one, upon which we constantly flirted.
To make matters worse, the Rambler and its precious cargo were now wedged between giant semi-trucks, all barreling along at top speed. One was so close behind us that it was almost nudging us forward. From between clenched teeth, my mother whispered that she could not see around the trucks, and if they stopped, we’d crash. That would be the end of this branch of the Chenault family tree. I went back to squishing my eyes shut and gripping my lap belt, praying for a return to that cow-dotted, cornfield-lined country road.
Eventually, we arrived in Cleveland, shaken but safe. We met new cousins and played in the backyard on a swing set barely bolted to the ground. The thought of swinging so high that we could tumble to our death entangled in the plastic and aluminum swings, materials that would probably be outlawed today, was exhilarating.
Between bridges and swing sets, new roads, and unnerving roadside motels, we’d all experienced little feats of bravery over the week. But most importantly, once we’d made it to Cleveland, my mother had enough confidence in her driving skills that she could safely return us home once the trip was over.
Years later, my mother and I would openly share our fears as adults. I couldn’t begin to appreciate this as a child, but acquiring a license and a car on her own was a magnificent feat.
The divorce had been brutal, leaving her with the pressure of succeeding against all odds. So many had expected her to fail. She said they thought she couldn’t possibly raise children without a husband and would likely end up on government assistance.
The Rambler American was much more than a car for my mother. It represented something we often take for granted today: freedom. It was her vehicle for taking risks and exploring new territory, literally and figuratively. It was essentially a means to find herself—a courageous woman who would stop at nothing to defy conventions and obstacles. She’d simply insert the key, turn the steering wheel, press the gas, and meet the road that lies ahead.
Monica Chenault-Kilgore was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently lives in Edison, New Jersey. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University School of Journalism. Her published works include Liberty and Justice for All: Profiles of Middlesex County African American Veterans of WWII and the Korean War, which is available in the public library. She formerly worked as a contributing reporter for The Home News Tribune and The Courier News. Her debut novel, Long Gone, Come Home, came out this summer.