Thursday I traveled to Dayton, Ohio, my family’s old stomping grounds,
to attend the annual Apollo Rendezvous meeting that got rolling Friday. After arriving, I met my father John and sister Nancy and we
spent a little time running around the city visiting some sites
associated with family history. A couple of those sites also relate to
the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who as we all know invented
flight and are therefore the godfathers of space flight.
See more images from Dave's trip to the 2009 Apollo Rendezvous.
Not only do the Wrights lie a short distance from some of our ancestors
in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery (at right), but visiting my father’s boyhood home on
Ruskin Road in Dayton brought out a story about the Wrights from my
Dad. The Wright’s niece lived two houses away from my Dad, and several
times he walked downhill when he spied a big black car parking near the
house — Orville Wright’s. The two spoke a number of times and my Dad
says the inventor of flight was an exceptionally nice man in his later
years. At 88, my Dad’s still around and going strong — and offers us an
amazing link to the early history of aviation, and by association
spaceflight.
Related:
Apollo Rendezvous 2009 Friday
Photos courtesy David J. Eicher