As a young man barely in his teens, Dennis Baker was on the lookout for the perfect match to share his time with.

Returning from a trip to Watonga with his dad, John, he spotted her and she was a beauty.

In the following days, he spent many hours with her and fell in love.

Unfortunately, a time came when he had to let her go… Her name was Vada. She was a sleek, cream-colored 1953 Ford Customline club coupe flathead V8 with three-speed on-the-column treasure from years gone by.

Only 14 years old at the time, Baker said he and his father had been looking for an old car to “tinker with,” but most of what they saw was “either in too rough condition or the money wasn’t right.”

Then on the fortuitous day over 40 years ago, they came across a vintage ’53 Ford in original unrestored, yet drivable condition, at a car lot in Watonga.

After Baker’s dad made a call to Baker’s mother, Goldie, they handed over a check for $1,200 and the car was now part of the family.

When they had time, Baker said he and his dad worked on the old car restoring the interior and other things.

“We did what work we could here and there and just enjoyed it,” he said.

In the evenings, Baker said they would get it out and cruise around with his dad at the wheel, since he didn’t have his license yet.

“My dad and I would go out in the evenings and drive around in that thing for hours,” he said.

Recalling those memories, Baker said the old A.M. radio didn’t work, so he and his dad wired a cassette deck in the glovebox and some speakers by the quarter kick panels with a six-volt converter.

“We would pop in cassettes and listen to big band music, driving around and just talking until after dark sometimes,” he added.

When he got in to high school, Baker said the ultimate goal was to enroll in auto mechanics and rebuild the engine.

Under the direction of Kingfisher High School automotive mechanics instructor Chuck Henderson, Baker, along with the steady help of his good friend Paul Quintle, did just that.

Sharing his vast wealth of knowledge and love of auto mechanics with his students, Henderson started his teaching career in 1965 at KHS and taught there for 19 years, plus another eight years at Chisholm Trail Technology Center as well as several years developing curriculum for the State Department of Education.

“Mr. Henderson is an old car nut, too, and he knows them front to back,” Baker said.

Much of his sophomore year in auto mechanics class was spent performing a complete overhaul of his ’53 Ford, Baker said.

“Mr. Henderson would tell us what we needed to do,” Baker said, “and as we were learning, he would check our work.”

Growing up in the 1950s, Henderson is very familiar with the ’53 Ford and said, “that engine was one of the most difficult engines ever built in America for a doing a valve job.”

A time-consuming effort, Henderson said to adjust the valves, it is a process of grinding then checking and before you know it you’ve ground too much and have to start over.

“Very few people will do it right, but if you do, it’s a really sweet engine,” Henderson said. “Dennis had the ability and diligence to stick with it and get it right.”

With an increasing passion for old cars, Baker also found a new love during those high school days.

A Lomega High School student, Lora Yost caught his eye and they’ve been married now for almost 29 years.

In 2002, as their family grew with two young daughters, Kelsi and Kori, the Bakers had the opportunity to buy a larger house, but in order to help fund the purchase, Vada had to go… but she was never forgotten.

“One of the regrettable options was to sell that car along with a 1931 deluxe coupe model A that I had also acquired to restore,” Baker said.

As the years went by, Baker began to think about Vada again.

“I told Lora that if I ever got the chance to get that ’53 back, it would be so cool,” he said.

Thinking of all the possible scenarios, Baker also wondered about the condition of the car, in the against-the-odds chance he would ever locate it again.

“Would someone have totally changed it from its original condition?” Baker questioned.

“Could it have been crashed and totaled? Or maybe burned up in an unfortunate structure fire?”

Often times one of the aspects old car lovers enjoy is the lack of technology involved in the nostalgic and simpler-made vehicles of a by-gone era.

However, for Baker, technology was on his side.

In old paperwork, Baker located the Vehicle Identifi cation Number of the ’53 Ford and began a search on Google.

Shockingly, he found her sitting on a used car lot in Dallas.

“I looked through all the pictures and could see it was the same car - same interior as when I sold it, same engine and the same color I painted it in high school,” Baker said.

Yelling to Lora to come take a look, Baker said, her reply was, “Yep, that’s your car!”

Making a call to the dealership, Baker soon found out she had moved on to a new owners some time back.

He wasn’t giving up and with more searching, Baker eventually tracked the car to its then current owner, Jason Bell, in Carrollton, Texas.

After telling his story to Bell, Baker told him he wanted “first dibs” if he ever wanted to sell the car.

“‘The car obviously belongs with you and I would love for you to have it back,’” Bell told Baker.

In 2016, 14 years after Vada was sold, Baker was able to bring her home.

After he and Lora made the trip to see the car and complete the deal with Bell, they made arrangements to have it transported back to Kingfisher.

Arriving on what would have been Baker’s parents’ 63rd wedding anniversary was a little bittersweet, he said.

His dad passed away in 2011, but Goldie still lived just around the block and they called her over to surprise her, Baker said.

As she walked around the corner of the garage, Baker said, his mom warmly pronounced, “‘You got your car back!’” Many of the details of where Vada has been and what she’s done during her absence may remain a mystery, but the Bakers are happy she’s home now.

Not much has changed, Baker said, but a 12-volt system was installed to replace the 6-volt system, pin striping has been added and the bumpers re-chromed, but everything else is the same.

“It’s passed through some interesting points and somebody has done some work to it in addition to what I had done and it’s all been improvements,” he added.

His youngest daughter, Kori, made another observation about the car’s odometer.

It had rolled over the 100,000 mile mark and eventually stopped working at 375, Baker said.

“It’s our local phone prefix for Kingfisher and Kori suggested that Vada was trying to phone home, like E.T.,” Baker laughingly noted.

While Vada was gone, the Bakers welcomed two sons-in-law, Diego Perez (Kori’s husband) and Willy Hanvold (Kelsi’s husband), and two grandchildren, Auden and Beckett.

Since Vada’s return, Baker said he’s continued to “tinker” on the nostalgic car and make improvements, even entering her in the annual Kool Cars show several years where she won first place in the Ford Original 1940-53 division.

Now that Vada is a part of the family again, Baker said she’s in the will and not going anywhere.

“I’ve thought of my dad every time I’ve worked on her, drove her and even every time I walk past the garage and just look at her,” Baker said.

“I’m so glad she’s back.”