The Story of a Chevrolet Family

Brian and Carey Hamilton, owners of Beardmore Chevrolet, Subaru, and Hyundai, have sold their longtime Bellevue business to Morrie’s Auto Group, based in Minnesota. While the plans are finalized and the transition from Beardmore to Morrie’s continues over the next few months, Hilary Hamilton, daughter of Brian and Carey, wanted to share a little bit of the Beardmore/Hamilton story.

The Story of a Chevrolet Family – by Hilary S Hamilton, daughter of Brian and Carey Hamilton

The year was 1919, and General Motors was just breaking ground on its first headquarters in Detroit, Michigan, shifting its production focus from wartime to civilian vehicles as World War I had ended the year before.

In Kansas, my Great-Great-Grandfather, Wilford Overton Beardmore, had his eye on selling the new Buicks coming out of General Motors. That same year, with four of his six sons, he opened up the “Beardmore Motor Company” in the small downtown of Glasco.

Glasco lay eight blocks by seven blocks, and was home to just over seven hundred people. Highway 24 ran right alongside the town, giving downtown an active commercial hub with people passing through on a regular basis.   

My Great-Grandfather Meade was one of those four sons who worked at Beardmore Motor Company. During World War I, he was sent to Oklahoma, where he fell in love and brought home to Glasco my Great-Grandmother, Mabel Ellen. They would go on to have two sons, Carlos (Carly) and Maurice (Moe).

In 1926, Meade would venture out to open his own dealership in Mankato, just 44 miles to the Northeast via Highway 24, with double the population of Glasco, naming it the “Meade Beardmore Motor Company.”

Going from selling Buicks to selling GMCs and then on to Chevrolets, Meade would have a successful car business there for the next 30 years. During that era, Carly and Moe would grow up right in time for World War II, and both would be sent off to the Navy, with Carly even returning home with the Navy Cross.

After the war, Carly would be the first of the brothers to open his own dealership in Cambridge, Nebraska, in 1954. Moe would soon follow with his own dealership in 1955 in Oxford, Nebraska, the same year Chevrolet introduced the small-block V-8, opening a new era in high-performance vehicles. This engine would power millions of cars and trucks over the next 70 years and counting.

In 1959, the two brothers decided to venture together into a dealership in Beatrice, Nebraska, a town with a population of 12,000, and they named it “Beardmore Chevrolet.”

My Grandfather Moe was truly a perfect car dealer. He loved people, and some of his witty jokes are still told by the family and people who knew him to this day.

Beatrice would be where Moe and my Grandmother, Patricia, would raise six children – Christy, Carey, Cyd, Dave, Dan, and Sam.

My mother, Carey, remembers big family gatherings with lots of cousins, as  Carly and his wife, Cookie, had eight children of their own. They would have picnics in the park with cook-outs, swimming in the local pool in the summer, and ice skating on the tennis courts in the winter. She even remembers seeing Judy Collins sing and play her guitar in the small town park there on a sunny summer afternoon.

In the early seventies, Moe took the leap and moved his family to Omaha,  Nebraska, to first have a Chevrolet dealership in Papillion, Nebraska, and then on July  1, 1971, opening up a brand new car dealership in Bellevue, Nebraska, naming it  “Beardmore Chevrolet,” where it would remain in operation for the next fifty-plus years.

The Beardmore children grew up with their father talking business at the dinner table in the evenings. Inspired by her father’s love of the car business, my mother, Carey, decided to study business at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Before she left for college, my Grandfather Moe told her that “nothing ever good  happens after midnight” and to “leave at the height of the party.” He also told her that  “if there is a party, I expect you to go, because that’s where you’ll make your memories. But I also expect you to get Straight A’s”

This would be the place where my mother met my father, Brian Hamilton, by chance when he happened to be walking down the street with a friend when he spotted my mother across the street and exclaimed, “Wow! Look at her!,” and his friend responded, “Oh, that’s Carey. She’s my cousin. Want a blind date?” And the rest is history.

They were married on November 20, 1971, had my sister, Rebecca, in 1972,  and me, Hilary, in 1974. While my mother was pregnant with me and for some years after, she would take night courses at the University of Nebraska-Omaha,  graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1978. Her first job was at Beardmore Chevrolet, where she studied all the warranties, a job she says she still enjoys to this day.

At the young age of 29, my mother, Carey Hamilton, became a dealer herself in Grand Island, Nebraska, when she and my father purchased the dealership there, naming it Hamilton Chevrolet Cadillac BMW.

She and my father sold everything they owned to purchase that dealership; they sold their car, their home, cashed in their 401K, took out loans from Moe and General Motors Holding. It took six months for Motorholding to approve my mother because of her young age, but once approved, Mom and Dad were well on their way with Moe’s advice, “Sell it for more than you paid for it, and spend less than you make.”

So it was in 1982 that our family of four made the move further out west to Grand Island, and my mother would become one of the few women car dealers in the country at the time.

My mother would often be the only woman in the room when she traveled to conventions and meetings. Right from the start, she proved herself to be a great business leader and became highly respected in the automobile industry, later serving on the Women’s Dealer Advisory Council for General Motors and a number of Chevy marketing dealer advisory committees. She was also the president of the Chevrolet Advertising Council and Marketing Group.

My mother had learned from Moe that good businesses are supported by good,  strong communities, so as a business owner, you should invest in education and community outreach programs that help serve the community in some way.

Jane Addams, the Founder of Hull House in Chicago, the first and most famous settlement house in the United States that offered services to the poor and needy in a community-centered approach, was also a great inspiration to my mother when she was a young girl. 

With these influences, over the years, both my mother and father became involved in the community in all sorts of ways, including with Heartland United Way, St. Francis Foundation, and Grand Island Community Foundation. We would also, as a family, take in exchange students for a semester through the Rotary Club exchange program from Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

While I was growing up there in Grand Island from the age of eight years old on,  having my mother as the Chevy car dealer in town was something I was always so proud of as I soon realized from a very young age that my mother was doing something out of the ordinary, and that she was doing it very well, with an essence of extraordinary. Throughout the years, I would have many friends and women in the community tell me that my mother had been a great inspiration to them in the decisions and goals that they would later make in their own lives.

And my mother couldn’t have married a more perfect partner than my father, Brian Hamilton, who is not only a warm and wonderful person but also from a trucking family out of Salina, Kansas, with four of his uncles being the previous owners of Graves Family Truckline. So after having worked in the trucking industry himself after graduating from college, he took easily to the switch to selling cars with my mother out in Grand Island. He was also, like Moe, a natural at selling cars, as he loves community and giving customers something nice to drive.

In 1987, my father and mother expanded their business by purchasing the Chevy dealership in Kearney, Nebraska, naming it ‘Midway Chevrolet,’ and, over the next 20 years, also purchasing the Cadillac, Buick, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and GMC franchises in the community.

My Grandfather Moe passed away the same week I left for college, and it would be three years later, in 1995, that my mother and father relocated themselves back to Bellevue, Nebraska, to run Beardmore Chevrolet, and then in later years expanding the business to include the Subaru and Hyundai franchises.

Continuing in the Beardmore Family tradition, my parents continued investing in the Bellevue community with Mom joining the Board of Directors at Bellevue University, where her father, Moe, had also once sat on the Board. As a member of the board, Mom helped establish and fund the Maurice Y. and Patricia Beardmore Scholarship to support students in need of financial assistance with their education.

My mother was also a founding member of Women Investing in Nebraska through the University of Nebraska Foundation, where she served as the chair from 2017 to January 2019, developing a stepped membership to allow women to join for $500, $1000, or $2,400, which helped huge growth happen in the Foundation.

Also, in 2012, my parents gave the lead gift to what would be named the Hamilton Academic Excellence Room at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, a 5,200-square-foot study space for athletes with updated technology and comfortable seating.

They would become the first General Motors dealer in Nebraska to earn the General Motors Green Dealer Certification in 2017 when they renovated Beardmore  Chevrolet to use a 14kW photovoltaic system that converts sunlight into electricity, a heating system that uses waste oil for a fuel source with natural gas for backup heat,  LED lighting, and new fire sprinklers. They also included a new dog park and a dog lobby. The dog park was so popular that they later added a second dog park.

In 2019, at Beardmore Chevrolet, my mother threw a 100th Year Anniversary of the Beardmore Family being in the car business, with bands, magicians, and buffets to celebrate with all the employees, family, and community members, who have helped to make Beardmore Chevrolet a successful venture for six generations of the Beardmores. There is even a well-known employee, Lyle Ward, who has been with Beardmore Chevrolet selling cars for over 50 years.

This long family history of selling automobiles in the Bellevue area, over fifty-four years, came to a close this spring of 2026, when Mom and Dad decided to sell  Beardmore Chevrolet, Subaru, and Hyundai.

They will continue to run Midway Chevrolet, Buick, Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and GMC in Kearney, Nebraska, and plan to enjoy being in the car business for years to come, alongside further community activity, travel, and time spent with family and friends.

I can see in my mind’s eye Wilford Overton standing there amidst the wheat fields of Kansas, tipping his hat to his Great-Granddaughter Carey, telling her, “Job well done”. It’s been a successful ride.