Family Centennial Pg 4

The Rest Of The Story

By now you have probably read I Must Fly! They are true tales from the heart that I wanted to write about.

I did not intend to write Family Centennial. It was snowing outside and my flying was done for the day. The old, yellowed manuscripts written by long-forgotten ancestors still waited on the shelves to be read. I sighed, and sat down with the first packet. A musty odor escaped from the manila envelope as I fished the sheets of paper out. The adventure began!

It was startling being catapulted into the primeval woods of Down East Maine. I was seeing through the child-eyes of a great grandmother who, along with her family, were the first white people there. As the child grew to womanhood her fierce intellect focused sharply on details of pioneer existence from yarn spinning to barn raising. Self-taught, her analysis of the growth, economics and institutions of her central Maine town could be called a sociological master’s thesis and a moving novel all rolled up into one--a "Little House on the Prairie" in Maine!

A handsome military Captain—great grandmother’s future husband—writes of chilling experiences endured in the Civil War. Deadly bullets zing by and he doesn’t give a damn. Some smash into his pack. His brother has just been killed.

Kansas is taken by the whites. One relative without benefit of education writes of early struggles and her contact with relentless nature and the wonderfully adapted "lions of the prairie." Her people knew them as "nosey Indians." Her husband is "best friends" with Wild Bill Hickock.

Another envelope: more thin sheets of typing paper. A grandmother from the west, tells of her early aristocratic life with her father, who among his close friends were General Ulysses S. Grant, President Garfield, and philosopher Robert Ingersol. One brother served the U. S. as Ambassador to Sweden and the other as a military general under whom Buffalo Bill Cody became famous. Her mother authors books—some about the Transcontinental Railroad, the fastest thing of its time. Grandmother becomes a famous "American Composer." They are all "on the edge." None are content to flow with the river of life—they want to go faster! Her sons are pilots. One is also a surgeon.

The children of the east meet the children of the west in the mountains of northern California. They have a passion for each other and life—especially aviation. They love to fly. Many of their friends are pilots. Their group works to make a success of the little airport. It is a time of bustling economic activity. Lumbering is strong. Roads and railroads are chiseled into the majestic and remote canyons. Some smart folks are getting rich. Flowering love crashes head-on into World War II! The small community is emptied of most of its men. The descendent of the west travels to the Pacific to heal the wounded as a Flight Surgeon. The young wife, a pilot and descendent of the east, is left behind to run their hospital, wrestle with difficulties and tend to the child. Their wartime correspondences reveal special insights of the life in the small town, their town. Snowscapes of the Sierra clash with torrid tropical scenes in warring New Guinea. Violence in the sky twists the future and death is sudden—both far away and close to home. Its aftermath stuns the town—but from the ashes of despair rises new hope as the child steps into the future—on the cutting edge of his own destiny, always trying to make the stream of life go faster…He must fly!