On December 19, 1966, the Ypsilanti Press reported the passing of Miss Gertrude E. Woodard:

"During the many years of her residence in the Huron Motor Inn, she kept in touch with much that was going on in the city and had compiled clippings on many local families. From her window, she looked over the city and observed what was happening, even to the flight patterns of the pigeons…

She drove a Covert Motorette to work as a librarian in the Law School Library at the University of Michigan. Miss Woodard was Ypsilanti’s first woman driver, and when she stopped operating her car in 1911, she had a record of having never had an accident. The car was purchased in 1901, when she visited the factory at Lockport, N.Y…

It was cranked on the left side and the driver sat on the right. She used a bar for steering it. A bell on the dashboard warned of the car’s approach, and the vehicle could be driven 18 miles an hour. One pint of high test gasoline was all that was needed to reach the Ann Arbor campus. There was a flickering carbon light for after-dark driving…Classes were suspended when she started it up each afternoon for the trip home. It usually made a crackling, explosive sound when it was cranked…She used ordinary house numbers to indicate her license number. The last one she had was 1240. The car is now in possession of the Mott Foundation in Flint."

Miss Woodard’s Covert later passed to the Sloan Museum, also in Flint, Michigan, from which it was acquired by Mr. Moir. He has since been able to amass extensive documentation of its ownership history, including photographs and articles on Miss Woodard and her car, as well as documentation from extensive work that was performed on the car by well-known brass car expert John Caperton in preparation for its display in AACA events. Much of the paint, upholstery, and trim on the car appear decades-old, in keeping with its “museum piece” aura. During restoration, Dave Steinman had a new cylinder block cast to replace the original, which had cracked. The most fascinating bit of memorabilia is the tag that was attached to the car during its time in the Sloan Museum, where it was maintained by General Motors.

The car is as dramatic today as when it was built, and it evokes a bygone time when an elegant young woman used it to putter through the dusty brick streets of Ypsilanti.