About T-Model Tommy

The Story of T-Model Tommy
Adventure, romance and excitement abound in T-Model Tommy, one of Stephen Meader's most popular books. Meet Tommy, a 17-year old boy who lives with his widowed mother in New Jersey during the 1930's. Tommy manages to buy an old Model-T truck and through industriousness, talent and hard work gets the truck running. Soon Tommy is making a living hauling small loads for people in the area.

When he lands a job hauling coal for the mines, his business begins to take off and so do many new thrilling adventures. From Tommy's dangerous encounter with highjackers to a romance with his high school sweetheart, T-Model Tommy is filled with thrilling exploits and energy. T-Model Tommy is truly a classic children's adventure for all times.

Faithfully reproduced to duplicate the original edition, T-Model Tommy is now available in soft cover, hard cover and in leather bound limited edition from Southern Skies.

T-Model Tommy - Based on Real Life Characters & Adventures
Many of Meader's books are based on his own life experiences and encounters with people he had met. In the forward of T-Model Tommy, John Meader, Stephen Meader's son and literary preservationist, describes the life influences that shaped the characters and adventures that appear in T-Model Tommy.

Stephen Meader's older son, Steve Jr., acquired a Model-T jalopy and got it to run so he could drive up and down the lane behind our house. His talent and skills developed as he became involved with bigger and more sophisticated machines.

…Going back to his early days before the War, Steve Jr. became friends with a young entrepreneur who had started his own trucking operation and was hauling coal south from the colliers in the Pocono region of Pennsylvania. The fellow had started with an old, rather dilapidated truck and later updated his equipment to include a couple of fairly new, larger capacity trucks. Steve Jr. helped his friend maintain his small fleet and, in time, was hired to make a number of trips to the coal mines in the older of the two trucks.

T-Model Tommy is not the story of Steve Jr and his adventures driving an old truck to the Poconos, but I am sure it was the inspiration for the book our father wrote.

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