By: Whitney Legget, CV&T Summer Intern

A column by CV&T columnist Don White elicited several responses from the community. 

In the June 17 issue, White recounted his search for an old rusty car that had been placed up in a tree. After the article was published, several locals called to share their stories about the old car that somehow ended up in that tree on KY 89 just about a mile from Irvine. 

James Patrick, Richmond, visited the CV&T office on Thursday and shared with the staff a clipping of an article written by former Editor Jeff Moreland in February 2000. The decade old article told the complete story of the old Studebaker and just how Ed Hardy had managed to get it in that tree. Patrick said he enjoyed the article especially because he had made a special trip to find the car just around a month before White wrote his column. 

Hazel Woosley, wife of the late Nelson Woosley, Irvine, said that her husband helped Hardy hoist the vehicle into the tree. Hardy was having a hard time getting the car placed just how he liked it.

“Along came me and my husband,” Woosley said. “And we had to stop and help him out.  I remember standing in Edi West’s driveway and watching them put the car up there.” 

Mary Woolery Jenkins, Irvine, was 20 years old when she watched Ed Hardy hoist the 1947 Studebaker into the tree using a long chain and the help of what she remembers being three or four other men. More than 50 years later Jenkins, now 73, remembers the scene vividly. 

“I sat with my three sisters on the front porch and watched him work on it for two or three days,” she said. 

Jenkins said she loves reading stories like the one that White wrote so much that she reads three different newspapers a week. She particularly enjoyed this story because she was there to witness the action. 

Jenkins said the funniest part of the ordeal was what Hardy told everyone about how the car got in the tree. 

“He would laugh and say he was driving down the road from Irvine and drove right up the tree trunk,” Jenkins said. 

It’s amazing that the men got the vehicle up that tree that day. But, it’s even more astonishing that it’s still there 53 years later. The story still sparks interest today, though. It’s obvious that even when the day comes that the metal on that old machine rusts away and the tires and interior rot out, Ed Hardy and that car will forever be part of Estill County’s memory.