Joe England grew up in the shadow of Michigan Central Station, living with his parents and four siblings in an apartment building the family helped run during the Great Depression, across the street from the giant depot where he would eventually depart and later return from World War II. Now 97, England, who recently lost his wife of 72 years, had one last wish – to revisit the station Ford is restoring as part of its mobility campus of the future.

England, who now lives in the Detroit suburb of Westland, was inspired to revisit the building he calls his ‘old friend’ a couple of years ago after driving past it with his late wife, Lucille. A friend of his made contact with Ford and a private tour was arranged.

Arriving in a 1940 Ford Deluxe convertible driven by Ford retiree Darrell Harding, England was greeted by Ford President and CEO Jim Farley, who presented him with a gift – cufflinks handmade with fallen graffiti from the historic building. England has documented in a scrap book the station’s decline and eventual rebirth with Ford’s purchase in 2018, never forgetting the building he last walked through as a solider returning from war in 1945.

“It’s like an old friend,” he said. “I pretty much adopted that building from a young age. I loved that building. That building still means a lot to me. I’ve had people take me there just to see it again.”

Following his tour of the station, which is filled with construction scaffolding, England was surprised by friends and family in Roosevelt Park, adjacent to the building. In a note showing his appreciation for the tour, England thanked Ford for recognizing the potential the station represents both today and in the future, and for “having the foresight to see much more in a weathering building than just to have it torn down.”

England’s parents were fortunate to find work and housing at Tre-Way Apartments across from Michigan Central Station after losing their home in the 1929 financial crash. England departed for the Army in 1943 from the station on his first train ride, and went on to serve as a triage medic, arriving after the first wave of the bloody invasion in Normandy, France. He was part of a small group that helped soldiers to surgery.

“Every one of them had terrible skin burns or all kinds of wounds over their body and limbs, especially,” he said. “They were all wounded in one way or another, and they all still had their uniforms, which were soaked in blood and water. We were looking at some pretty horrible things over the next month. I wasn’t there during the worst of it. I wasn’t a hero. I was just doing my job, like any medic would try to do.”

One day, as his unit moved down the coast, he had his closest brush with death. England and another soldier were charged with carrying a heavy wooden case, which slowed their pace. Weighed down and falling behind, the men decided to take a shortcut, wading into some water filled with mines. “The Lord allowed us to get out of there without any mishap,” he said. “I could have very easily been blown to bits or lost a limb or something.”

After the war ended, in December 1945, England returned home via Michigan Central Station. By then, his family had moved from Tre-Way Apartments where he was raised.

“I mean it from my heart – it’s one of those things, when you grow up next to it and have memories like I’ve had, it really rings some bells and means a lot,” he said of Ford’s restoration of the Beaux-Arts building that first opened in 1913. “Having been old enough later on to go off to war and come back in one piece to the same building has a lot of sentimental and real value.”

Workers are now in the final phase of restoration of the iconic train station, as construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2022, with the building opening to tenants and the public in mid-2023. Michigan Central Station will be the centerpiece of a 30-acre mobility innovation district in Corktown that will help prepare Ford for the connected, autonomous and electrified world ahead.

Within two years of returning from World War II, England got married. He used funding from the G.I. Bill to take vocational training, where he learned to repair televisions. He was hired by University of Michigan Research at Willow Run Airport, where he had some memorable experiences and accomplishments. He worked with a research team that used infrared technology to search for ice caves and crevasses in Greenland and Alaska, and with the Army in Vietnam to develop enemy detection equipment.