99 Years and Counting!

It may seem odd to some to be starting a blog at age 99 but when you’ve lived that long, there are lots of stories to tell, especially since Joe has had a wide range of experiences throughout his long life and has remained active throughout much of the time since his mandatory retirement from flying at age 60. With so many stories to share with friends and family, we began recording video of conversations with him in February of this year.

The idea has been simple – what started out as simply curiosity on our part about our family heritage and an interest in preserving an important part of aviation history has blossomed into an opportunity for Joe to actively leave some kind of legacy for his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. He now regularly talks of these recorded interviews as a remarkable opportunity to allow his heirs to see and hear for themselves, through these first-hand stories, what sort of person he has become over the years and to have a glimpse into a past that would otherwise be lost.

Already we have a great many hours of video and this blog is one good way to begin sharing out some of the resulting gems without having to wait for them to all be compiled into a single (lengthy) work.

One of Joe’s most famous stories is about the Northwest Airways flight proving it was possible to fly from Minneapolis to Seattle across the northern Rockies, even in the wintertime. We’ll start with that one and take off from there.

View 1933 MSP-SEA Survey Flight in a larger map

If you have a favorite story you’d like for me to get uploaded sooner rather than later, or questions you’d like for me to ask Joe for the record, just make a comment or send me a message and we’ll see what we can do.