American Portrait

By Dave LaNave

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469104164

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Copyright © 2008 by Dave LaNave.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

One person’s name has been changed at the request of his parents. The reference to Nalcomis Flying Club’s code for access has been altered for security purposes.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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50581

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

PROLOGUE

FATHER

TINA

ROCKO

STAN THE ALMIGHTY

TEN ACRES IN HEAVEN

THE ROSE

MONA

WILD THING

ME

AND ALL THE CHILDREN SING

TONY LaNAVE Jr.

MOTHER

OUR SWEET EARTH ANGEL:

MARY GAYLE

EPILOGUE

Endnotes

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness. How constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers (and sisters), that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you…

Romans 1:8-13

I would like to thank my brothers and sisters, sons and daughter and my most excellent grand children and nieces and nephews for their support in this endeavor. Most importantly, however, is the love and appreciation that comes from being a son to my Mother and Father. This testament only begins to reveal the scope of what they accomplished in giving me and my siblings the ability to go out into this ever changing world with the confidence and perseverance that is required at times.

The documentary movie Portrait of an American Family is available in DVD format. Included in this DVD is footage of the Carnation Festival celebrations of Alliance, Ohio as well as footage of the dances that were held at the Aqua Club.

Comments and inquiries may be submitted to: [e-mail].

PROLOGUE

Anthony LaNave Sr. watches through the maternity room door glass window worry is written all over his phlegmatic face. Unfounded worry as child bearing has become more or less routine in the first half of the 20th century. But his expression belies routine. Anything can and does occur in the delivery of a newborn child and, despite his seventh go at being a father, he is still very much concerned for the love of his life and his glowing wife, Gayle, coming through this ordeal without any complications.

Hours later his emotions swing gaily as if in a hammock supported by the twin post of relief and pride. Back home, Stanley, Patrick, Rosemary, Ramona, Linda and I have just heard of the birth of our new baby brother, Tony LaNave Jr., having been born into this ever changing world. It is January 9, 1950 and America, having prevailed in the worlds’ latest major war, is again reeling from yet another gut check. The Soviets now have the nuclear bomb, as well as many other top secret plans for aircraft, submarines and still unknown strategies from a communist spy network second to none and the worlds’ second largest global power is also spreading its’ beliefs to vulnerable third world countries. The cold war is in full stride.

So innovated and diverse is the communist network, that many American citizens consider it their freedom to also include decrying democracy in favor of the communist regime which is spreading like a cancer. Many of these Americans have never carried a weapon or worn a uniform in defense of their country, they seem ignorant of the fact that true freedom is definitely not free. In response to this very real threat to our democracy, America’s State Department devised a plan to espouse the wide range of our constitutional rights as law abiding citizens. To this end, an industry wide appeal is made for every major corporation in America: bring us the best of the best, your most highly valued employees.

When the call went out by the State Department, Dad was at the time an employee with the Consolidated-Vultee aircraft manufacturer out of Nashville, Tennessee. This is where the first P-38 Lightning’s rolled off the assembly line, and Dad had his two oldest boys names on the fuselage of the first two. In five years of employment there and with no former college education, Anthony LaNave, or as he is known by friends, Tony, has a private pilots license and is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). He has also written an article for the association’s magazine, Sport Aviation, describing a twin engined ‘pusher’ aircraft he has designed with an innovative ruddervator; the combination of a rudder and an elevator in a Vee tail design. The design also calls for a revolutionary tilt engine feature for Vertical Take Off and Landing (V-TOL). Dad can be said to be an up and coming innovator and Consolidated-Vultee has their nomination to throw into the hat. What is not known to them being that Tony LaNave meets all of the criteria that the U. S. State Department is considering. Tony LaNave and his young family are about to embark upon their ‘15 minutes’ of fame.

The documentary film Portrait of an American Family is released in 1951 to rave reviews, garnering the Oscar nomination for it’s genre’ in that years’ awards. It depicts how the son of immigrant parents pulls himself up from his bootstraps through nothing short of perseverance and downright hard work to become the epitome and the embodiment of what it is to be an American. The film crew follows Dad from Nashville as he embarks on a new career in Wayne, Michigan to work for the Kaiser-Frazer automotive firm. This is also where the filming of Tony Jr.’s birth takes place. Rising quickly through the ranks, Dad takes evening management prepatory classes and soon takes on the added responsibility of assembly line supervisor. But he always has his eye on the bottom line and the expenditures are higher than what is coming in.

After a few short years in Michigan and with no prospect of a increase in income soon he makes yet another tough decision. Filming his ability to move from state to state, job to job without encumbrances, Dad is heading back to his hometown where he was born and raised: Alliance, Ohio. The very town where he gained his sterling work ethic first, on a paper route as a young boy with his pet spider monkey. Over time the spider monkey learned to fold and hand up through the slit in the paper delivery bag, a newspaper, which Dad then threw to the subscribers porch. He also pulled used car parts off of wrecked and salvaged vehicles in Axelrod’s junk yard. Every red cent going to the common pot at home to pay the bills and buy food. His ‘crew’ included young John Gwin who would grow up to be a judge in Alliance and who gave Dad his call sign: BEANS. Since that was the staple meal for this poor immigrant family and the resulting phelbar having been dutifully passed by Dad, the name took. That he was tough as beans was to be realized later when he played football for the Alliance High ‘Aviators’ as their quarterback, just a few years before the legendary Len Dawson took the helm as quarterback. It was during this period in his young life that he met, and then after graduation married Mary Gayle Kettering and began the adventure of a lifetime.

Mom’s parents also immigrated to America from France. Unlike Dad’s family and early childhood, her mother and our grand mother, or as we called her MeMaw, was fortunate enough to be retained as a bookkeeper in Cleveland during the great depression. My fondest memory of MeMaw, I was about five or six, and it was hot outside. I brought her a tall glass of ice water with a slice of lemon and a napkin around it. She threw it out and told me Bring me warm water! What a loon, I thought. Later, reading Depek Chepra’s book on digestion which suggested warm fluids in the heat it dawned upon me that she was right! Mom’s dad, we came to know him as Daddy Bob, was reduced to selling potato chips during the depression, but both those incomes afforded her family a comfortable middle class status. Mom and her sister Maria would have had an older brother, William, but he was what was at the time called a blue baby or still born. William was not given the chance to grow up or to go to school, was never able to fall in love, and he never had a chance to be cool. My fondest memory of Mom was her high school graduation photo. Perusing the magnanimous beauty on the photo before me, I understood immediately that there was no doubt: Dad had to know upon first seeing her, that this was the woman he would court and marry.

Mom’s grandfather was the world renown scientist, Dr. Charles Franklin Kettering who went on to be the General Manager of General Motors. In an uncanny twist of fate, a relative of our family, Mark LaNave, is the current General Manager of General Motors!

After graduation, Tony and his older brother John went to work for the Taylor-craft Company in Alliance. It is believed that is where the mascot of the high school originated: The ‘Aviators’. Tony and Uncle John would go on to become expert welders both for the company and later in life. The back story I heard from Uncle John on this topic was that the company was transitioning from fabric and wood fuselage to a stressed tubular steel frame. When the welding equipment arrived and the instruction booklet was read it became clear that the welders would be Dad and John, the only two who could decipher the technical aspects of the instructions!

Dad would later work for Goodyear Aerospace in Akron, Ohio where he went into early retirement as V.P. of Personnel. It was during this early retirement that Dad and his friends from Goodyear devised a warning system for him to monitor our then invalided Mother’s progress. As with Consolidated-Vultee and his aircraft designs during employment there, Goodyear would now own the patents to the device they designed with Dad that would go on to revolutionize the Intensive Care Units (ICU’s) of hospitals across the country. The documentary ends shortly after his return to Alliance, settling in on State Street with MeMaw, Angeline Kettering, Gayle’s Mom. This is where I would like to pick up the story, passing along what has happened with us and this country and the rich heritage that it represents to me for my brothers and sisters, their children and our grandchildren.

America has changed along the way and we as a nation have witnessed a new era of threats which is much more diverse and which borders on the perverse. Terrorism knows no borders, works outside the frame work of conventional wisdom and has no need for rules of engagement or infrastructure that peace loving countries may attempt to defend their freedoms against. Mom and Dad’s offspring and their children’s children are now exposed to a very real and complex enemy that does not fight for land, money or resources.