Rambler auto built in 1897 (at right) as it was driven on Michigan avenue yesterday among the cars of present day. Henry Heiser Jr. (left) and Sparky Yates drove the ancient one cylinder car from Lowell, Ind., where they discovered it in a stable on farm of Heiser's father.

This captioned picture, from the April 17, 1932, Chicago Tribune, was in the collection of Thomas F. "Spark" Yates' son Richard, who added, "By the way, although the photo caption referred to my father as 'Sparky,' he actually used the name 'Spark.' . . . It was the oldest car that my dad ever worked on. Dad was an expert mechanic and had been asked by Henry Heiser to travel out to Lowell for a weekend to see if he could get the car in running condition and then accompanied Mr. Heiser on the Rambler's journey in case road repairs were needed."

Lowell Town Historian Richard C. Schmal, cousin of the "Henry Heiser, Jr., in the picture, also adds to the story: ""Henry Heiser Jr." was really Florian Heiser, my first cousin, who liked to stretch the truth a bit to make a good story for reporters. The Heiser family did not have a farm; they ran a hotel two doors away from the Tramm blacksmith shop where the car came from! (We lived two doors from the hotel.) Bill Tramm owed Henry Heiser a restaurant bill and turned over ownership of a 1908 Reo and the 1897 Rambler, but Heiser failed to pay the lawyer and a meat market, so the lawyer got the Rambler and the butcher got the Reo. A few years ago I recieved a letter from a friend telling me that the lawyer still had the Rambler in Hebron, Indiana, and that it was for sale. I called my friend Ray McIntire, who soon purchased it for his private museum in West Creek Township, where it stands today. . . . I rode in the Rambler during a 1920's parade here in Lowell."