Tents! Mineola, New York

 

It's pretty fun for me to get a glimpse into how my grandfather put together items in his scrapbooks.  He generally starts off with some photos that identify his new surroundings, like buildings or points of interest.  Here, he has photos of the tents at Mineola, and some shots, perhaps of his neighbors, or maybe just friends. In a recent post, I was able to identify Ralph Taylor as a friend of Ivan's. Ralph is on the right in the photo below, and so far I haven't identified the other gentleman. Ivan seems to have valued friendships and people. There are a lot of photos of people throughout the collection.

Here's a particularly nice old photo of the tents at Mineola after dark. I don't know about you, but this photo stands out to me like a scene from a movie. Crickets are singing, and off in the distance there's a guy playing guitar, or harmonica - maybe a phonograph. Laughter and camaraderie and a warm summer evening at camp. 

 

There are more and more photos of guys clowning around as we move along, and here we see an early morning shot of Taylor (center) and a couple of other fliers in a goofy pose. The accouterments in this old photo are interesting.  I can make out a couple of watering pots, a lantern, Taylor is holding a soda bottle and a cigarette, and the fellow on the right has a cane over his shoulder. Of course their hats are on backwards and sideways. Their attire fits the time of year, which would be summer of 1916. There are more of these types of shots in other albums as well. I think Ivan had some pretty fond memories of these days, judging by the numbers of this type of photo.

I have a six photo series of Happy Bagnell coming up next, which will finish this first album in the collection.  You're going to love these, I promise.

-kpw

The Preparedness Day Parade

Unfortunately, I'm at a point in my studies where I'm not able to spend as much time as I'd like researching this.  I was able to do a little detective work and discover that the parade passed a the address 205, and featured a China, Glass and Toys seller by the name of Max Schwan, which showed up in Norfolk, Virginia. There were many such parades across the U.S. in 1916 urging the government to make appropriations in preparation for war. Unfortunately, most news accounts fixate on the horrific suitcase bombing in San Francisco, California, which makes it difficult to find more details about our parade.

You should be able to make out the sign in the photo below when you open it in X2Large size on Smugmug, but if you're in a hurry, it reads "Aeroplanes - Are the Eyes - Of the Army & Navy - Aviators & Students - Curtiss Aviation School - Newport News, Va."  The sign sheds a little light on the name of the plane they are leading, the Speed Scout, which was alleged to have a top speed of 105 mph.

Next up will be some photos of airplanes at the Curtiss School. I believe I'll hone in on a flying boat, and I have more than one model, so I'll start with the model F.

-kpw

The Aero Club pays a visit.

I accidentally tore one of these photos with the EPES mark off a page today, and discovered it was a post card!  I'm not going to peel anymore off to verify, but it might be interesting for further study.  Anyway, here is a group of students with the Speed Scout.

This next photo is a group from the Aero Club that visited the school/station on April 8, 1916, according to a book entitled "Flyboys over Hampton Roads", by Amy Yarshinke.  Her book also contains quite a few photos by Mr. Conway.  A few of these men may be familiar by name.  Admiral Peary was widely credited with leading the first expedition to the North Pole.  Professor Todd was an astronomer.  Henry Woodhouse was on the board of governors of The Aero Club, who turned out to have a very interesting life story!  This may be the only photo of Glenn Curtiss in Ivan's scrapbook, and you can see Curtiss Jr. over to the right.  The Aero Club founded a flight school in Philadelphia at the Lazaretto Station, and it appears that Clarke Thompson was connected with the station, and was a member of the club.  I found a photo and caption of Thompson and D. S. Norton in Aerial Age, which mentions that Norton was purchasing a flying boat.  I have nothing on the other two gentlemen, but I'm guessing that they also were Aero Club members.

Finally, a larger group of students and instructors at the station.  I won't get into any details but I did find something interesting about the names.  Most of them were not written by Ivan, whose handwriting was... distinct, shall we say?  They were actually written in by my father, Ivan P. Wheaton, Jr.  (I have heard stories that my grandmother put quite a bit of pressure on my mother to name me Ivan Pangburn Wheaton, III.  Thanks, Mom!!  Although I did inherit the "Pangburn", I have no idea who Pangburn was in our lineage that was so blasted important.  In return for all the grief I got for that name, it would be nice to know who the heck it was.)  In case I haven't mentioned it recently, a star over a person's head indicated that he had died sometime while Ivan was still living.  Possibly a Model R-4 and notice the group by the prop grinning for the camera.

Many, many more photos from the Curtiss School yet to come...

-kpw