Thanks for sharing. Where did your dad get his engine training?
Innate talent, and a spate as the "loneliest man in town". . . in Southern Indiana as a Maytag Repairman, LOL, when a LOT of Maytag washing machines were gas powered. . . and then he enlisted in the Army Air Corp in 1936 where he got trained as an aircraft mechanic. . . and then was training aircraft mechanics at Wright Patterson Army Air Corp Base, until he heard there was a civilian job available at McClellan Army Corp Base RIGHT NOW. . . but his hitch wasn't up.
At that time, not being a war time, one could BUY one's way out of he army for $150. So, with the letters of recommendation from his commanding officers and base commander, he applied for the McClellen Job and got it. Paid the $150 and was released with good standing. . . put my mom on the back of his Indian motor cycle and headed west young man and wife. They arrived in Sacramento with $16 to their names. . . and the land lady of whom I have written "The Land Lady's Tale,' a true ghost story, every Halloween here on FreeRepublic took pity on them and rented them an apartment on 22nd and I Street without requiring her usual first and second months rent and security deposit.
He took every course the manufacturers offered some correspondence. . . and read everything he could get his hands on. My dad was no slouch. He'd been offered a Rhodes Scholarship in 1931 but had had to turn it down when his dad's small town bank had gone under in the crash. . . but declined the scholarship so he and my grandfather could work to pay back every depositor every dime they'd lost in the failure of that Grampa's bank in Southern Illinois (No FDIC back then). That was done before dad enlisted (part of the Maytag work while Grampa farmed and worked in another bank as a manager). Grampa never got his bank going again, but was satisfied that the depositors got their money back. He died in 1953 as a farmer and Gramma came to Sacramento to live with us.