Volunteer Spotlight: Featuring Elliot Friend

By:  Iris Clearwater, Volunteer Coordinator & Senior Gardener

Upon entering the J.K. Lilly Automobile Gallery, you cannot help but marvel at how perfectly clean and well maintained the cars are, and think, Wow, who takes care of these?   You’ll also be amazed to find out that out of the currently 43 vehicles in our collection, 28 of them run and can be driven today!   

This has been made possible by the loving attention of a special dedicated team of long-time volunteers who care for these cars.  We’re going to get to meet one of these superstar volunteers today, Elliot Friend. 

Elliot came to us with a lifelong passion for cars, including his 42 years with Napa Auto Parts, starting off in sales, making his way to becoming District Manager, and then President General Manager.  As a child, his grandfather was a doctor, and encouraged Elliot to take things apart and put them back together again.  At age 15 he inherited his grandmother’s 1953 Ford and taught himself to make modifications to it using books, specs, curiosity, and ingenuity.  He quickly became a car nut, buying cars that didn’t work, getting them running, and improving them to re-sell. 

Knowing his passion for cars, upon moving to Plymouth in 2012, his wife Janet dropped him off at Heritage when he visited for the first time, met Jennifer Madden and soon joined the team of 4 volunteers already here, including Jon Elmendorf, who finally joined our Heritage staff last year as Auto Collection Manager after volunteering here for over 20 years!   Elliot has been here ever since, working Wednesdays, Thursdays, and more.  Last year he volunteered 693 hours alone!   

This includes additional hours preparing for and attending special events and car shows that can take him on all sorts of road trips – like the time he brought the 1909 White Steam Car to Washington DC to be displayed on the national mall, visited by thousands of people over 5 days enclosed in its own heated and airconditioned plexiglass box with 24 hour security – presidential accommodations for President Taft’s presidential car!   

Cars, like people, need a regular exercise regime to not fall apart.  When Elliot arrived only 9 of the cars were active.  He helped establish more active maintenance of the cars, turning the motors over and working on repairs to successfully meet the goal of reactivating one or two cars in the collection each year.  To make this possible more funding was needed, and Elliot researched and proposed a budget to make these repairs, inspiring board member David Geisinger to initiate the first Cocktails for Cars in 2017. 

In addition to hands-on work of every kind, Elliot maintains the service and reactivation plans for the cars in the collection, the budget, and tracks the volunteer hours for the at least 6 other regular auto volunteers including Jon Capistron, Phil Forte, David Greenman, Don McKennitt, Rick Mignone and Craig Smith.  

I guess we could say that in addition to exercise and repair, like us, cars also need community.  Each volunteer brings their own unique skills and personality to make the maintenance and regeneration of the collection effective, fun and meaningful – for each other and for the collection.  Every car has been specially chosen to illustrate an important development in the history of automobiles.  Each one has a special story, as does each member of this group of amazing volunteers who help to keep this history alive, growing, and enriching the world. 

If you would like to find out more, please visit our Volunteer Page, fill out our Volunteer Application, and send any questions to volunteer@heritagemuseums.org.