Joy Ride : Ohio Family Gets to California in Homemade Wagon

For well over a century, Americans have been urged to go west to seek fame and fortune.

But for much of that time, they have made the trek by train, bus, automobile or airplane--certainly not by covered wagon. That is, until the seven-member DeMarco family, setting out from Ohio almost eight months ago in a homemade prairie schooner, collapsed in tears of exhaustion and joy on the beach in Santa Monica late Wednesday afternoon.

“Oh God, that tastes good,” Tom DeMarco, 38, said as he kissed the sand and saltwater. “I’ve been saying prayers to thank God for his protection. Tonight, I’ll drink heavily and ask him for his forgiveness.”

DeMarco, a self-employed woodworker who had been having trouble finding employment in his depressed hometown of Kipton, decided early last summer to move to California to seek new opportunities.

With his family strapped for cash, his wife Pam, 31, a history buff, joked that perhaps they should do it like the pioneers of the 19th Century.

The idea hit DeMarco like a bolt of lightning.

“We had nothing to lose,” he recalled Wednesday. “We had our backs against the wall, anyway. And when everything falls through, you either give up or charge ahead. This is my way of charging.”

Using historical photos as a model, DeMarco crafted his wagon from 160-year-old floorboards that he ripped from the attic of his house.

The 90-year-old wheels were discovered in an abandoned railway depot. Pam DeMarco sewed the canvas covering.

The DeMarcos only concession to the modern era was their energy source: a used Allis-Chalmers tractor, nicknamed “Old Iron Horse.”

Originally, they explained, they had planned to use two horses, but the steeds bolted during a trial run and nearly killed DeMarco.

The family began the journey last July 15, puttering along at 10 m.p.h. on back roads and on the shoulder of Interstate 10 through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and the desert Southwest before arriving in Los Angeles County this week.

Many nights, they slept in the 5-by-13-foot interior of the wagon and cooked their meals over a fire in pots and pans that hung from the side of the vehicle.

With their five children--four girls and a boy ages 1 1/2 to 8 years--it was cheaper, and safer, that way, DeMarco explained.

“One of the most dangerous parts of our trip was taking the five kids into a restaurant,” he said. “It could be a new TV show, ‘Dining with the DeMarcos.’ My baby, Marielle--she’s 17 months--flipped mashed potatoes 20 feet once and hit a man in the head. She has a lot of promise in her right arm, let me tell you.”

Frequently, however, the family was invited to lodge in the homes of strangers they met along the way.

“We’ve come through the heart of America, really. And it’s a big heart,” DeMarco said. “And it crossed every color, as well as rich and poor.”

The DeMarcos began the last day of their journey just after dawn in Glendale, where they had stayed overnight at the home of some new-found friends.

Inching down Colorado Boulevard before heading south to Santa Monica Boulevard, they passed (and were passed by BMWs, RTD buses and bicycles) through West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

In a jaded metropolis where people are used to seeing 100-foot-long, flower-bedecked dinosaurs gliding down Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard each Jan. 1, many pedestrians and motorists simply ignored the covered wagon. Yet hundreds of others waved and cheered the DeMarcos on as they sputtered past palm trees, burger stands and mini-malls.

“Another mile, another town,” declared DeMarco, changing gears while going through a yellow light at Robertson Boulevard.

Single-minded and nearing the point of exhaustion, DeMarco never even felt the 5.5- magnitude earthquake that shook the Southland in mid-afternoon.

“If it was a 12, I’m so numb that I wouldn’t feel it now,” he said later.

The long journey ended in a Santa Monica Beach parking lot, just south of Pico Boulevard, shortly before the rush hour.

Hoisting Marielle in one arm and a large American flag in the other, DeMarco led his family--which also includes Danielle, 8, David, 5, Marissa, 4, and Martina, 3--to the surf.

Meanwhile, bicyclists, joggers and skateboarders in neon shorts scratched their heads in amazement at the sight of a covered wagon just up the beach from the Venice Boardwalk.

“We’d have to put this head-to-head with the Venice chain-saw juggler and let the audience decide,” said jogger Charles Berry, 26, after shaking DeMarco’s hand. “But I know where my vote would go. This is better than ‘Born on the Fourth of July.’ ”

Having reached their destination, the DeMarcos plan to spend the next couple of days with a Santa Monica couple they met near Palm Springs.

DeMarco then hopes to find an apartment and a job “in any community that will have us.”

He also will spend some time savoring his family’s accomplishment.

“I hope to enjoy my life and finally do what I want. For the first time in my life, I’ve done what I want. And it’s worked out.”