I do not believe the statement "could be measured correctly with the wheels NOT parallel to the frame " reflects proper procedure on the part of the person doing the alignment... since the car must be rolled forward (or backward) and it rechecked at the new postion to take out any tire set, etc...
I do not think that toe in can be set correctly at anything other than straight ahead.. and the people I watched do this in the old days simply pulled a string tight from around the rear wheel to the front and measured to see if they were parallel....
In other words, when doing the toe in the steering wheel, the rear wheels and the distance between the front tires all need to be kept as criteria... or something will be amiss....