His mother surprised him with a wad of money, cash she had squirreled away so that her oldest son could buy the family’s first automobile. For $650, Harry purchased a used 1911 Stafford, built right in Kansas City. The car put his ambitions on wheels, especially when it came to Bess Wallace. (In 1914 nothing worked to woo a woman like a sixty-mile-per-hour motorcar.) Harry became a regular guest at the Wallaces’ on Sundays. Bess’s brothers George and Frank took to him, with his easygoing charm, but Bess’s mother, Mrs. Wallace, was ice cold. “Mrs. Wallace wasn’t a bit in favor of Harry,”
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