I'm a bit disturbed you "don't know how they did it." First car I drove was a 55 Chev wagon 235, on the tree. I never thought it was that hard. We didn't drive 80 back then, and I never thought "3 on the tree" was too bad..........our old Chev used to get stuck between gears once in awhile, but most of THAT was because "I" was being sloppy, or worse (I was 17 in my Jr year in spring of 65)
When I took driver's ed in high school, we had one "stick" we had to drive some. A really nice 56 Chev 6 moredoor I guess biscayne. Nice and clean, likely low miles, donated by the local Chev/ Olds dealer.
Nice old Ford, tho. I've always liked the clean simple lines of those years