Photo: TimesReporter.com
One man from North Carolina is determined to track down and buy back the only link his wife still has to her late father: the 1979 Ford F-150 4x4 she was born in almost 37 years ago.
Hugh Merritt’s story has gone viral, not because it’s a touching endeavor (which it is) but because it seems doomed from the get-go. Though he’s been able to track down a few of the truck’s owners after his late father-in-law sold it, he doesn’t have the Vehicle Identification Number. That means that he’s looking for a needle in a haystack, since Ford sold 700,000 F-series pickups in the year of 1979.
Merritt tells Times Reporter that the truck belonged to Leonard Orr and his wife Marilyn. In January 1979, on their way to the hospital to welcome their daughter, they got caught in a severe snowstorm. The girl, Emily (now Mrs. Merritt) would be born in the truck, with just their two parents present. Marilyn was a certified nurse and there were no complications.
Just recently, Mr. Orr passed away and Emily feels like she’s lost all connection to him. This gave her husband the idea to track down the truck, telling Fox News, “I can’t do a whole lot to make her feel better about her loss, but I can do that.”
He managed to track down the truck up to the second to last owner, but he’s come up empty in his subsequent searches. This is why he’s going public with his story, in the hope that someone out there might recognize the truck and give him a helping hand.
“Merritt said the bug shield was decorated with a picture of a bear on roller skates. The second-to-last owner was Leonard Warner of Uhrichsville, a Gulf War veteran, who traded it to a Honda dealership in New Philadelphia, which, in turn, sold it to a classic car restorer from the South,” Times Reporter notes.
Those who have seen the truck are urged to contact either of the two media outlets mentioned above.
Merritt tells Times Reporter that the truck belonged to Leonard Orr and his wife Marilyn. In January 1979, on their way to the hospital to welcome their daughter, they got caught in a severe snowstorm. The girl, Emily (now Mrs. Merritt) would be born in the truck, with just their two parents present. Marilyn was a certified nurse and there were no complications.
Just recently, Mr. Orr passed away and Emily feels like she’s lost all connection to him. This gave her husband the idea to track down the truck, telling Fox News, “I can’t do a whole lot to make her feel better about her loss, but I can do that.”
He managed to track down the truck up to the second to last owner, but he’s come up empty in his subsequent searches. This is why he’s going public with his story, in the hope that someone out there might recognize the truck and give him a helping hand.
“Merritt said the bug shield was decorated with a picture of a bear on roller skates. The second-to-last owner was Leonard Warner of Uhrichsville, a Gulf War veteran, who traded it to a Honda dealership in New Philadelphia, which, in turn, sold it to a classic car restorer from the South,” Times Reporter notes.
Those who have seen the truck are urged to contact either of the two media outlets mentioned above.
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