By: Nancy Kilmartin | The Southwest Florida Historical Society
Thursday, September 12th Chet Wallace, Registrar at the Edison Ford Winter Estates will be presenting a program. His topic is “The Vagabonds: The Travels of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.” The lecture focuses on the camping trips that Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, John Burroughs and Henry Ford took throughout the United States, with a focus on the first of these trips to the Everglades. Please join us Thursday, September 12th @ The Collaboratory – the former location of the train depot. The address is: 2031 Jackson Street. Coffee and cookies will be served @ 6:45pm. Chet’s presentation will begin at 7pm.
Chet is also an author of two books. He will be offering to sign and sell his books. The two books are described below:
- Here is one for my Two Wings and a Star book.
Chester Baudoin was a top-notch Louisiana Sheriff in St. Mary Parish from 1964 to 1984. He was responsible for inventing the barrier that separates the front and back seat of a patrol car and used flying extensively in the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Department. Baudoin had a love of flying since he was a young boy and he went on to become a “hump” pilot in World War II and flew gasoline to Chennault’s Flying Tigers over the Himalayan mountains. His story is told through his grandson, Chet Wallace, and many stories of his grandfather’s flying stories and methods of law enforcement are told through him. The book is a fascinating read of a life of law enforcement and flight. Guaranteed to enthrall any reader and especially students of history, flying and law enforcement.
2.Here is one for Stories of the Winecoff.
Stories of the Winecoff: A Dedication to the Memory of the 119 is about the worst hotel fire in U. S. History, which occurred in Atlanta, Georgia on December 7, 1946. The infamous Winecoff Hotel Fire spawned the iconic picture of a woman plunging to her death from one of the upper floors of the hotel. It also prompted the swift enactment of more stringent safety ordinances all across the country and shamed the organization that had, just two months before, cited Atlanta as “the safest city from fire in the United States.” Wallace’s book is a virtual reunion of those victims, most of whom didn’t know each other at the time, and none of whom could have imagined that 72 years later, they would be permanently ensconced in a literary shrine. “Stories of the Winecoff Fire” draws on recollections of friends, family, and survivors, published reports, journals and diaries, and a number of other sources, to fashion 243 pages of personal portraits that remind readers of our humanity, our fragility, and our enormous good luck in not having to disprove a hotel’s boast that it is “absolutely fireproof.”
Please arrive a little early to join in fellowship. Cookies and coffee will be served beginning @6:45p.
