Putting miles on a 2013 Lincoln MKS saved his life
Now Iowa man wants to thank factory workers who built the car
When Douglas Burns of Carroll, Iowa, purchased his 2013 Lincoln MKS, it marked the peak of a storied career as a fourth-generation newspaper publisher — just before his life unraveled.
He watched the consolidation of the newspaper industry. His family lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in property and savings. He had to sell his mother’s house to pay off debt. He ended up losing ownership of the Carroll Times Herald.
The sedan stayed with him through dark days that he never could have imagined.
But with every turn of the odometer, he knew he could go on.
Now it sits at 326,997 with no repairs other than basic maintenance.
A miracle, really.
He thought of the factory workers who built the car. He knew if he could push aside thoughts of self harm, knowing that it would be years before the bad would get better, then he would survive. In this Lincoln, he carried the factory workers with him.
“I was struggling,” Burns said. “I had to get advertising sales for the newspapers, trying to hustle and cobble together a living. I’d get up in the morning really depressed. At times, I thought about suicide a lot. I was that isolated and depressed. The car gave me a physical sense of the word I needed — momentum. I woke up in the morning and said, ‘Doug, you just need something small to happen today, some interaction with somebody that would bring joy or positivity.' ”
He drove that Lincoln 175,000 miles and then 200,000 miles and then 275,000 miles. He marveled at the mileage and started thinking about the car's many components and the many people involved in designing and installing them.
“For me, it was all about who put this incredible vehicle together when everything else was falling apart around me. The car was not. It was giving me a physical sense of momentum that I needed emotionally and mentally,” Burns said.
“I began to feel those workers were in the car with me, and kind of rooting for me. I felt this connection to people I hadn’t met and felt we were all in this together. It gave me strength to fight through the pain and suffering. I thought, if Detroit could get up, I could get up, too.”
Never too late to show gratitude
Burns, now 55, asked me if it would be possible to find factory workers who built his car, to thank them for saving his life. I reached out to Ford Motor Co., and tracked down two Ford employees who actually worked on Burns’ car all those years ago.
When factory worker Marvin Jones learned of the story, it left him speechless.
“It’s a blessing, it’s really a blessing. I have to be able to give that to God right there,” Jones told me. “I’m at a loss for words to hear something like that … I’m shocked, you know. I can’t believe someone would have a struggle like that and be able to be thinking about a vehicle that we made for him. I hate to hear anyone has struggle.”
Jones, now 52, built the Lincoln at the Chicago Assembly Plant, where he has worked for three decades. His UAW job back in 2013 was team leader on the metal line, to make sure the vehicle had no dings or dents or defects.
He worked for a bit at the Ford Pilot Plant in Allen Park, which does research and development, too. He said he has seen Detroit grit up close. “They take the job serious and I appreciated what they showed me.”
As for Doug Burns, Jones paused. “I just want to tell him to keep his faith up and keep his head up and keep his car — keep driving and be happy.”
Jones is a father of three children and a second-generation factory worker. His father worked at Ford until he passed away in 1989. “He had 21 years out there.”
‘It floated, almost. It rode so nice.’
Factory worker Douglas Matlock, 58, of Plainfield, Illinois, echoed Jones' thoughts. Matlock, the son of a truck driver and a beautician, is an internal plant auditor at Chicago Assembly with the title quality operating systems coordinator. For 31 years, he has done troubleshooting and trained others.
As someone who is 6 foot 3 inches tall and 275 pounds, Matlock remembers the 2013 Lincoln MKS as large and comfortable. “It was a joy to drive that car. It floated almost, it rode so nice.”
Knowing people spend their hard-earned money on the cars — and hearing they’ve been dependable from a customer like Doug Burns — makes workers feel valued, Matlock said. “It makes me extremely proud.”
Losing everything except the Lincoln
Doug Burns realizes he can’t ever sell the car. It’s part of his life forever.
Looking back helps him appreciate how far he has come.
Just before things turned bleak, the fourth-generation publisher won the 2013 newspaper of the year from the Iowa Newspaper Association — against 300 or so newspapers.
The tiny newspaper in a county seat town of 10,000 residents depended on Champion Ford Lincoln in Carroll, one of the biggest advertisers, to help keep the local publication afloat.
Burns, co-owner and vice president for news, sat at the World War II surplus metal desk inherited from his uncle and grandfather before him. They drove Lincolns, too.
“We were an ensemble cast of designers, writers, ad reps,” Burns said. “I was 43 and I was thinking, I earned a Lincoln. It was an achievement purchase I aspired to own since I was a little kid. This is what a newspaper publisher should drive in rural Iowa. It had to be American-made.”
He added: “We had first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses and I covered those for a quarter of a century. We had different figures come to our community,” he said. “This was a distinctive vehicle that allowed me to help not only put our newspaper’s best foot forward but it allowed me to take people touring around our community in a respectful and dignified way.”
They survived the 1929 crash and then …
The memories flow fresh, like yesterday.
His grandfather James W. Wilson operated the newspaper since 1929 and survived the Great Depression, handing it down to his son James B. Wilson and then his grandson Douglas Burns — with his mother Ann and brother Tom.
In the end, they had 15 employees.
“In Iowa, you had more distinctive brands and reputations for rural communities,” Burns said. “It meant something to be from Carroll or Algona or Storm Lake or Centerville or Oskaloosa. Now we’re seeing this explosive suburban sprawl in Des Moines and the metro area keeps gobbling up rural space. You have this incredible growth of soulless suburbs that don't have any past and exist fully in the commercial present. They don’t have a legacy or a rich history tied to their schools or communities or service in the wars. They lack the character that made Iowa what Iowa is.”
The family sold the newspaper in the heart of western Iowa, sort of within the triangle bounded by Sioux City, Des Moines and Omaha, Nebraska, to Iowa Information based in Sheldon, Iowa.
“We weren’t putting it into the hands of a hedge fund or out-of-state owner,” Burns said.
“We always saw our family as temporary stewards. For the better part of a century, that worked. Then the model started falling apart. We were building up debt and running it like a public utility instead of a private business. We held on to the building we owned and we didn’t fire people fast enough.”
In its final days, circulation had shrunk from 5,500 to 3,000.
Now, Burns wonders about buying a new car, after driving it to Denver and back. A friend said no, that it’s an extension of who he is today.
The car won’t die and one more story to tell
Burns is an active journalist working with La Prensa Iowa and Black Iowa News while helping to launch a nonprofit newspaper in Ames, the home of Iowa State University.
“At the end of the day, my love for Iowa and its people is intact. I feel a responsibly because community newspapers remain the last bastion of collective reality. We need to continue to persevere,” he said while driving home from Storm Lake.
“Fortunately, my laptop computer still works and I have a Lincoln with 326,000 miles that will continue to get me around. I’ve never believed in immortality until I’ve owned this Lincoln. There’s just something immortal about it. The car won’t die.”
A Ford employee asked me if Burns might consider sharing his story on video, to be played for factory workers.
This is what Burns said when I shared the idea: “I always thought being in the Oval Office with President Obama would be the most important event in my life. But being in front of 57,000 (Ford) United Auto Workers, telling them how much they mean to the country and mean to me personally, would surpass that.”
Editor's note: The International Association for Suicide Prevention wants you to know that if you are feeling suicidal, you are not alone and there is help for you. You should call emergency services like 911 or 988, talk about how you are feeling and see a health professional.
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I just did a tour of empty buildings that housed papers I used to work for. And I see a couple of them every day. I’ve heard owners say how they regretted selling them. And growing up in a John Deere town as the son of a UAW worker, and now the father of a Deere employee, I know how much those folks in the shop floor care about their work. Just as journalists do. And they all want the companies they make money for to care about them and reward them and their families and let them retire with dignity. I’ve also interviewed a spouse who lost her laid-off husband to suicide. And I also had several news colleagues die of heart attacks. So this story hits close to home for me on a lot of levels. I’ve always believed in the simple dignity of human labor. Thanks to Phoebe for her diligence and storytelling (which I know comes from years of cultivating trust with folks) - and to Doug for “putting himself out there” and allowing his story to be told. It’s courage some of only aspire to. You and your chariot are like Roy Rogers and Trigger Doug. Many happy trails ahead to you.
Powerful...thanks Phoebe. And Doug thx for sharing your story. It will be a real honor for the UAW guys to hear it.