Gazette-Times

Joyce Signer never meant to make history. It just worked out that way.

It happened in 1970, shortly after her husband, Dick Signer, had been awarded a franchise by General Motors. He planned to sell his five-year-old Dodge dealership and carry GM's Buick, Opel, Cadillac and GMC truck lines. He also had a deal to carry Jeep vehicles.

Then tragedy struck.

"He bought it on December 1st, 1970, and he died on the 23rd of that same month," Joyce Signer recalled.

She had hoped her son, Don, would eventually take over his father's business, but he was just 19 and still in college. She also had two daughters to support, so she decided to sell the dealership and go to work.

"But a dealer friend came down, and he said, ‘You are not going to sell that dealership. You are going to go down there and run it,' " Signer said.

"Of course, things like that didn't happen in 1970." In those days, women did not run auto dealerships.

Then as now, however, it took a long time for an automaker to approve a new dealer. Signer decided not to wait around for a decision.

"I just went down there and went to work," she said. "By September of 1971, they said OK."

Joyce Signer had become the first female Buick dealer in America. It was some time before there was another.

"The second was my good friend in Hermiston," Eva Swain, Signer added. "She was eight years later."

A lot of things have changed since those days.

"We bought the Dodge dealership for $11,000," Signer said. Today, she added with a laugh, "you can't even buy a car for that kind of money."