Weekly Celebration, Cover Reveals, and The Classics - CLOSING LINES: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

"Mrs. Hale drew a deep breath, as though her memory were eased of its long burden, and she had no more to say; but suddenly an impulse of complete avowal seized her.

She took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the bead-work table-cover, and went on with lowered voice: “There was one day, about a week after the accident, when they all thought Mattie couldn’t live. Well, I say it’s a pity she did. I said it right out to our minister once, and he was shocked at me. Only he wasn’t with me that morning when she first came to... And I say, if she’d ha’ died, Ethan might ha’ lived; and the way they are now, I don’t see’s there’s much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; ‘cept that down there they’re all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues.” "

(Published 1911)

We biked on Richland's Riverfront Trail early in the week. A tire blew on our friend's bike, which meant finding a bike shop and delaying the bike ride by 2 hours, but we managed to have fun despite the heat. It got up to 92 degrees. Usually too hot for me, but snow cones along the way helped!

A huge Thank you to Senco Cat Herder at http://pempispalace.blogspot.com/ for hosting a Cover Reveal of my novel, The Shells of Mersing last week.


I want to Thank Heather Holden for a super nice job at http://edgyauthor.blogspot.com/ this week for also sharing a Cover Reveal.


July ?? 2017 is still the launch date. Finally have an Author Page I like. I really struggled with the right colors and theme. Click here for a looksee or the page link above.

Vince and I will be attending a wedding next week, happy our nephew has found happiness at last. After losing a girlfriend a few years back, who had died suddenly, we all kind of wondered if he would. All the best this weekend. Set your sails and go for it!

"Come celebrate with us
To join "Celebrate the Small Things, visit Lexa Cain's blog

Co-hosts are: L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge

Tonja Drecker @ Kidbits Blog

T is for E. Lillian Todd - Pioneer Women in Aviation: A-Z Challenge

E. (Emma) Lillian Todd 1865-1937

E. Lillian Todd remembered that she loved discovering how things worked as a child. She would disassemble toys, use scissors as a tool, tinker with weather vanes, typewriters, telescopes, and even her walking dolls. As she grew older, she learned to build airship models and other aeronautic toys with motors.

Lillian was born in Washington D.C. in 1865. From a census taken in 1870, it appears her father had either died or left the home. Lillian was living with her mother and sister alone, but later mentioned she inherited her "mechanical and inventive talent" from a grandfather.

Lillian's education is somewhat vague, but she was bright enough to learn how to type and land a job at the Patent Office (NY). Another job opened in the governor's office in Pennsylvania, where she was the first woman to receive an appointment in that state's executive department. Returning to New York in 1890, she studied law at New York University and was a member of the school's first Woman's Law Class. Still a tinkerer at heart, she managed to invent a typewriter copy-holder, sharing a patent with a colleague in 1896. During the Spanish-American War, she also worked for the Director-General of the Women's National War Relief Association as a secretary in 1898. She was 33.

After 1903, Lillian returned to her ongoing fascination with "mechanical and aeronautical toys." Not since the model-making days of her childhood had she ever seen more than a model, but witnessing live airships flying over London and at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis gave her ideas. When she saw a sketch of an airplane in a 1906 Parisian newspaper, Lillian knew it was time to build a new model.

1904 Louisiana Purchase World's Fair

In December 1906, Lillian proudly displayed her first airplane design as part of the Aero Club of America exhibit at New York's Grand Central Palace. Lillian was the first woman in the world to build and design a heavier-than-air aircraft. Lillian drew national attention as Miss E. Lillian Todd. Her display received the most visitors according to newspapers. Evening World (Dec. 4, 1906) reported that Andrew Carnegie (a wealthy philanthropist) had spent hours discussing the model with "Miss Todd." Whether he had considered becoming her patron is unclear. Indeed, money would be a factor building a full scale biplane. Olivia Russell Sage, a wealthy widow who had inherited millions and also admired the exhibit, became Lillian's patron, donating $7000 for the project.

1906. Miss E. Lillian Todd (2nd on left) and Aero Club of America exhibit

In fall of 1908 Lillian hired two aeronautical engineers, Charles and Adolph Wittemann to begin construction. The plane would be built according to her design in Mineola, NY (inside a large shed). Meanwhile, Lillian pursued another interest, the mentoring and education of boys in the field of aviation. She formed the first Junior Aero Club of America in 1908. The club met in her living room, amidst all her inventions and models, where the group learned about flight and how to make models themselves. Clubs spread elsewhere and model making became quite the rage for awhile. The club also led to the formation of the Junior Wireless Club, which was a precursor to the Radio Club of America. 

"In Miss Todd's Living Room"

November 8, 1910 was the big day. Lillian's biplane had been rebuilt several times and finding the right engine was a fiasco, but the "Todd biplane" was finally ready. A crowd showed up at the Garden City Aviation Field to watch Didier Masson, a French pilot, fly Lillian's machine. The plane performed well. Masson flew for 20 feet, turned the plane around, returned and landed to everyone shouts of praise.

The top wing was modeled after wings of an albatross. Lillian spent hours studying  this bird at the museum. The frame was made of spruce, covered in bleached muslin and army duck, and held together with piano wire. Plane was 36 feet long.

 

Lillian sitting in her plane. 
She had invented, patented, and 

installed a device to control equilibrium. 

Lillian had planned to fly the biplane herself and wanted to travel around the United States, but the City of New York had denied her application for a permit to fly the previous year (Sept. 2009). Lillian was the first woman to apply for a pilot's license in the world.  

Interesting, the New York Times then reported two months later (Nov. 2009) that: "She intends to operate the machine herself as soon as her hands, which have given out, due to overstrained muscles and nerves, will allow of her managing the steering gear." 

Another newspaper several months later (Daily Journal and Tribune, Knoxville, TN, Jul 10, 1910) reported Lillian had signed up for several long-distance flights and that her mechanics were working on three designs. It appears that Lillian fully intended to fly the Todd biplane on her own, but something happened. Perhaps the City of New York intervened. 

No one knows for sure if Lillian ever flew her biplane. It's not likely she did. In 1911, she accepted a position with her benefactor Olivia Sage, and in 1912 arranged to have the biplane donated to the state of New York (the first person to do so). The Junior Aero Club thrived without her for many years to come and Lillian eventually settled in California in 1936. No one knows if she continued her experiments in aviation.  




Other Patents filed:
--cabinet with folding table
--cannon fired at noon by sun power
--sun dial
--aeolian harp device played by the wind

A delightful short film based on Lillian Todd. It 

won the 2013 Academy Awards Gold Medal for foreign films.  

Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Lilian_Todd; http://earlyaviators.com/etodd2.htm
Stars of the Sky, Legends All by Ann Lewis Cooper, Sharon Rajnus
http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/toddelillian.pdf; https://prezi.com/ae7hg_ttqd28/e-lillian-todd/; http://america.pink/lilian-todd_1345425.html;  http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/sage/id/180; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E02EFDC143EE033A2575BC2A9679D946897D6CF;
http://content.lib.auburn.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/sage/id/180

  

S is for Blanche Stuart Scott - Pioneer Women in Aviation: A-Z Challenge

Blanch Stuart Scott (1885-1970)

Her father adored her, doting on every whim it seemed. At thirteen, Blanche Stuart Scott was driving around the streets of Rochester, NY in her latest gift, a brand new one-cylinder Cadillac. The public, shocked that a gutsy redheaded young teen could drive a car, let alone a girl drive (wasn’t this a male sport?), watched in amazement. 

In 1898, there was no minimum age requirement in Rochester for driving an automobile, nor was it required a driver have a license. “Betty,” as she was called, was passionate about machines, automobiles in particular. It was only a matter of time before this passion would transfer to another great machine, those fabulous flying machines of the air.

Blanche Stuart Scott was born in Rochester, NY to John and Belle Scott in 1885. John made a good living selling patent medicine, enough to indulge their only child Betty. As a teen, Betty proved to be sports-minded. She competed in ice-skating and loved doing tricks on her bicycle. Considered a “tomboy” by the family, perhaps out-of-control was more like it, Betty’s mother decided to send her to a New England finishing school when John died in 1903. 

Flash forward to seven years later in 1910. Betty was 25 and her passion for the “horseless carriage” had not changed. Scanning the want ads one day, she learned that the Willys-Overland Company was sponsoring a cross-country trip by automobile from New York to San Francisco to promote their 25 hp Willys-Overland automobile. Betty wrote the company’s president and proposed a deal. She would drive his car (one he provided) across country as a publicity stunt and make a record for women. The president agreed the publicity would be great. The car would be called "Lady Overland." A newspaper woman would travel with her.

The journey began and after dealing with flat tires, driving over potholes, dodging rabbits, gophers, horses and cattle, and getting lost when maps failed, Betty completed the 5,393 mile route (only 220 miles were paved) in 67 days. She became the first woman in the U.S. to travel across country by automobile.

Betty preparing to leave New York. Notice the onlookers are all male.
On side of car it reads: “The Car The Girl And The Wide Wide World"

On the trip Betty witnessed a Wright Brothers aircraft flying overhead in Ohio, and decided then and there she wanted to fly. Back home again, she made it her goal to learn. After a bit of finagling, aircraft builder Glenn Curtiss  agreed to give her lessons in Hammondsport, NY. She would learn on the Curtiss one-seater (a rear pusher-type propeller). Training involved learning how to taxi the aircraft ("grass cutting"), which is exactly how Betty "accidentally" took off flying one day, September 6, 1910, and made a record. 

Betty learning to fly. Instructor Glenn Curtiss on left

Betty at the wheel

How a Curtiss aircraft (pusher type) looked in the air

Curtiss had inserted a block of wood behind the throttle pedal to keep the plane from gaining speed and lifting off, but something went wrong. The wood must have slipped out. A gust of wind suddenly lifted the plane and Betty took off soaring, flying for 20 feet, forty feet high. The unplanned lift off made Betty the first woman to solo in an airplane in the U.S. However the record was (and still is) contested. Bessica Raiche made an "intentional" flight ten days later (September 16) and is credited by the Aeronautical Society of America (see post here) as the first woman to fly solo. Whereas Betty's flight is credited by Early birds of Aviation.

Commenting years later on her solo flight, Blanche said: 
"I learned in two days. . . .The technique was for the instructor to wave 'goodbye' and God bless you' and you were on your way. They had you cutting grass--flying just above the ground--which we know today is very dangerous."

Betty started flying professionally for the Curtiss exhibition team. At Fort Wayne, IN she became the first woman to fly at a public event in the U.S., as the first stunt pilot as well. She learned how to thrill the crowds, doing nose dives and flying upside down, and was promoted as "The Tomboy of the Air." She dropped out of aviation for awhile to marry a Mr. Stuart (first name not given) in 1910, but returned in 1911 and broke a long distance record for women, flying nonstop 60 miles from Mineola, NY. 

In 1912, she became a test pilot (another first for women), hiring on with Glenn Martin, a well-known airplane designer and builder. She made a lot of money working for him, as the work was considered quite dangerous, up to $5000 a week, which was a lot of money then.
  
In 1916, Betty retired from aviation, feeling she had survived her share of accidents and crash landings. She was 30. Incredibly, she had flown for seven years without a pilot's license.  She went on to work as a movie producer in silent film. Divorcing her first husband some time after, she married another, who then died. She wrote comedy dialogue as a script writer for fourteen years in Hollywood. Then, returning to Rochester, NY to help her ailing mother, she became a radio broadcaster, developing the popular show, "Rambling with Roberta. Lastly, in 1954, she took a position with The United States Air Force Museum to obtain materials and promote the museum, traveling the world, during which time she made guest appearances on radio and TV and shared her adventures and the early days of aviation. She had come full circle. 


Other credits:
--1948: 1st woman to fly in a jet - in a TF-80C with Chuck Yeager, who did snap rolls and a 14,000 foot dive to impress her.
--1980: U.S. Postal Service honored her with a stamp, honoring her achievements in aviation




Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Scott; http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/scott.html
http://www.earlyaviators.com/eblanche.htm; http://www.crookedlakereview.com/articles/67_100/82jan1995/82shilling.html

Sharon M. Himsl

Writer/Author. Blogging since 2011. 
Published with Evernight Teen: 
~~The Shells of Mersing