Vice - Pete - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Thursday, September 19, 2019 4:00 AM

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My guest this week is a 1965 Ladoga High School graduate who was a bit involved in sports while there, only when he got his car the sports went by the wayside. He’s always been all about cars. In fact, his whole family is all about vehicles. Excited, he began telling me about the five car dealers that was at one time in Ladoga. Dickerson Ford; McClelland International Truck; Miller’s Kaiser; Herman Davis Chevrolet and Patterson’s DeSoto. Rattled those off without hesitation, too. As you can tell, he loves the history of his town, as well.

When he was in high school, he was a good typist and received his first job at Kenny Vice Ford, typing up warranty claims every day after school, another reason the sports and such were second to the car world. Others at the car dealership started washing cars so he thought typing was a good thing!

We discussed several changes in vehicles and other various inventions and I got to laughing so hard hearing him tell cell phone stories. He doesn’t have one, but his adorable wife (Donna Douglas who was a Dog ‘n ‘ Suds car hop) does have a cell phone. Now, he used to have one but was talking on it in Indianapolis with his window down. Dropped it, jumped out to get it and a guy smiled then proceeded to run right over it. Well that would get ya’ to thinking whether it was meant to be, now wouldn’t it? Also, he likes to talk to the cell phones and gets frustrated with them, once saying, “You worthless piece of ___ (fill in the blank),” and it answered, “What did you mean by that?” So, he loves inventions in cars but not so much otherwise.

This is an early reveal, but I bet you already know this is Pete Vice. The story of Vice’s Ford and the whole Vice family is just fascinating. Pete’s dad, Kenny worked for Herman Davis (for 20 years) at Ladoga, and when Herman opened the Crawfordsville car sales store, too, Kenny’s wife queried, “If you’re gonna’ run both of those for Herman, why don’t you just open your own here?” So, he did, beginning with seven workers (Kenny, a Used Car Salesman, a Service Manager, and three mechanics) in 1960. A new heavy duty truck in that year was $2,000 but the customer paid for anything beyond the basis of the truck, including the sun visor and radio. Pete said that it was the goodness of the area people that made it possible. As an example, a man named Rahn asked Kenny how soon he thought he could get started. Kenny told him, “As soon as I can save up ___ amount.” Rahn gave it to him, telling Kenny to pay it back when and if he could. If not, don’t worry about it.

Almost 60 years later, they are still in the same building (which had been the DeSoto Plymouth dealers) but it has had many changes. There were older houses around there that they’ve purchased and added on to the building and they now have 17 people in their employ, including Pete, and Donna, their daughter, Heather Owin and her husband, Luke, Pete’s brothers, Bob, and Gregg and his wife (Linda) and son, Kenny. Instead of that $2,000 truck, his big sales go into the $100,000 price range. Somewhere in the middle from an advertisement he whipped out of his desk drawer a 1985 Travel Van sold for $14,750.

We talked about the rapid changes, as well, one of the big ones is that 25% of young folks today don’t get their drivers’ license so that lowers the selling factor. Yet, he loves his job – “It’s exciting every day! We just delivered an SUV to the East side of Indy to a fire chief who trains dogs to smell a computer. It finds pedafile chips. The dogs sell for $15,000 and it takes five weeks to train them.” Another story was that a state trooper from PA flew in to get a Mustang. His father had an old one; he has a new one and Pete helped make it horse heaven at their house. So you see, it is the people part of the business Pete so enjoys, getting to know their customers and hearing about their lives. Exactly why I love writing this article!

Pete has been a Mason for many years, as has almost everyone in his family. He and all the family had for many years been Presbyterian until the local church was closed. They loved the church and the people in it so much that they even had church right there in the dealership for a couple of years, then his brother had it at his lumber yard awhile. While we were speaking of lumber, Pete noted that local lumber built the church!

I queried Pete about the pictures behind him on his office wall. Scuba diving – I thought just a vacation once. Lordy, no. He taught scuba at DePauw for a couple of years, even taking groups to the Caymon Islands for a couple of weeks with 4-5 dives daily. They have spent many vacations family diving as well. Now, his travelling centers more around historical sites. Heather enjoys genealogy (they stem from the large Pefley family in the Ladoga area) and his granddaughter, Olivia loves history so they gear their travels to things they would all like to see. Olivia is definitely the soft spot in his world and I agree with gpa’ that she has lots of talents!

Pete doesn’t worry about much he told me. “My dad said never criticize, condemn or complain.” Don’t get hung-up on negativity. Just fix the problem and if that can’t be, then, give it up to the Lord and go on. “Remember today may be the best day of your life, but tomorrow could be even better.” Had a great education talking to Pete and want to thank him so much for sharing his insight, love for his family and community with me this week in the Around The County article!