Henderson's Used Cars & Salvage
Ben Henderson
The Evolution of a Business
(Hard Work, Inc.)
My husband Ben is a product of the Missouri Ozarks and has inherited a work ethic that some people are incapable of believing. You've gotta live with it to know it...and I've lived with it!
He married me at the age of 19 and owned a motorcycle, a second-hand car and a young bull calf, all paid in full. ( He did consent to pay out my engagement ring on the weekly installment plan.) By the time our son was born, four years later, he was holding down three jobs (laborer at the local shoe factory and assistant to two of the town's mechanics after hours), heading to the family farm each weekend to assist with hay-bailing and de-horning cattle, and helping to draw up the floor plans for our first house.
When he was 29 we swapped my nice shiny new home for a shabby 100 year old house in the middle of forty acres lost in a jungle of walnut trees, buck brush and Johnson grass. He packed up all the junk he had invested in to that point (it was stored at his Mom and Dads' farm) and started his salvage yard. For the next four or five years he acted as dictator as his long-suffering wife and three children cleared land, picked up rocks, doctored cattle and repaired fences, roofs and old appliances. After his regular "working" hours at the factory he took on jobs in a drafty 20x30 foot building lined with cardboard boxes to help hold down the wind and worked most nights until midnight.
Henderson's Used Cars & Salvage had been born.
After about five years he at long last contracted to have a three-car garage built for his business, bought a brand-new shiny red wrecker (with cash) and he considered himself off and running. For the next four or five years he continued to build the salvage yard and at last was persuaded to give up his "day" job and go to work for himself...full time. It was a traumatic time and he was convinced we would starve to death.
As for me, I knew better. I hadn't lived with him all that time for nuthin'.
And now his old cars cover most of the forty acres (well, I convinced him to give me a little piece of jungle behind the house and we also have a large lovely yard to mow). At night the moonlight bounces off the chrome and mirrors and it could almost be a city as seen from our back deck.
Now, people come from all across the United States looking for old parts, a fender from a 1952 Nash perhaps, radio knobs from a 1948 Ford truck. His reputation has spread far and near and although he often has to admit to not having a needed part he more often manages to find it. He has a mind like a computer and it is a pleasure to watch him think a problem through. He sits in his chair in the shop, scoots the cat and the grandchildren out of the way and scratches his smudged head. Then he drawls out "Well, walk all the way to the back to the row where the red Chevy without a hood is. turn left and go about seven down and there's a 72 Cadillac with the trunk lid still in pretty good condition. And you might check over about four other rows. there's another Caddy with a door handle missing on the back left passenger side. You might find it there." And sure enough, if the petty thieves haven't been messing around, the part will be found.
So, for people who are patient and need car parts, check out Henderson's Used Cars & Salvage and my husband Ben. You may have to leave without what you need but you won't be disappointed. You'll have already met the best part of the business.