Foil: 17 Panel: 1 Column: 3 Line: 111

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Russell Gwinn Lacy D MIN

Van Russell Lacy, my father, was born on October 31, 1910. He learned to fly in a Jenny. He built an airplane in his grandmother's basement in Franklin, OH. It was too wide to get through the door so he cut it in two! He reassembled it and taxied it around in the field behind the house. He never flew it, but he had the pleasure and excitement of using it.

He did get to fly with a cousin, Maurice Fry, out of a field just west of Springboro at what is now the intersection of I-75 and Ohio Route 73. Maurice had an Aeronca C-3 at the farm. Pop made a model of it and covered the wire frame with real linen and dope. Imagine my excitement when I walked into the lobby of Cincinnati's Lunken Airport to find an Aeronca C-3 hanging from the ceiling in the lobby.

He worked on the flight line at Patterson Field before and during World War II. He spliced the control cables on the planes and whenever an axis plane was captured, he rewired it to make sure it was safe to fly. He also spent some time down south working on the Waco gliders that were used on D-Day.

We used to go outside to watch as a newfangled jet went over! Even after his heart surgery in 1966, and a later stroke, he would sit in a chair in the yard to watch the planes overhead. He lived to see Charles Lindbergh, the advent of the modern Air Force and witness a man walking on the moon!

In 1981 as we carried his body to its final resting place, a Waco biplane buzzed the funeral procession. It was a fitting tribute to one who loved flying.