Doug,
My parents and grandparents are all dead so I have no way of finding out how my grandparents would have gotten this vacuum. My parents had a Filter Queen from the 50s and it is the first vacuum I remember (I was born in 1959) so I don't know if my parents would have had the Arrow Electric first and then given it to my grandparents when they got the FQ or what. My grandparents were very old school, having both emigrated from the Ukraine. They had few electric appliances in the house, and I doubt that they would have bought a vacuum of any type. Unfortunately I will never know now how they came to get the Arrow.
Gary