100 Years Ago: 1924
Mrs. Una Fosdick entertained the Alpha Auction Club at her home this week at an April Fool’s luncheon. An auction was enjoyed through the afternoon, high honors going to the Harold Room and consolations to Mrs. Ralph Cobb. Mrs. Cobb will entertain on April 12th.
50 Years Ago: 1974
Although there was a lot of open water showing and the weather was the warmest it has been for weeks, the ice field still held firm Wednesday at Lake Auburn.
An observer, living on the lake shore, said that in her best estimate it will be several days before “Ice Out” can be reported.
The icefield is growing smaller but there it still sits there like a white pancake surrounded by water.
25 Years Ago: 1999
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, well technically it’s not a plane, it’s a vintage glider.
The Maine State Museum will be able to boast that they have one of the earliest examples of flight in Maine, with the recent donation from Charles E. Kerr of Auburn.
“It’s one of those great displayable artifacts showing what early flight was about,” said Denis Thoet, executive director of the Friends of the Maine State Museum.
According to the museum, the glider was built, probably in 1911, by Harold Cooper, of Auburn, only eight years after the Wright Brothers successful man powered flight.
Cooper was only 18 and just out of Edward Little High School when he designed the craft. Although he was too big to fly the glider, he enlisted 11-year-old Phillip Tarr of Auburn to fly the glider, which was capable of reaching heights of 30 feet. His 20-foot-long glider was made of pine stock, music wire and linen, held together with carpet tacks and carriage bolts.
Cooper moved into a life away from aviation after building the glider. He went on to the University of Maine’s School of Mechanical Engineering, graduating in 1915. He went on to serve in World War I and then joined the workforce as an executive at various shoe companies in the twin cities until 1941, when he purchased Woodworths’ Machine and Bicycle Shop. He died at the age of 60 in 1963.
After Cooper’s death, Charles Kerr Sr. of Auburn acquired the glider and wrote an article about it in the aviation magazine, “Soaring.”
The glider will need major restoration work before it is displayed in the museum.
“We have the struts of the wing span, but it’s disassembled”, said Thoet.
Museum curator Ed Churchill said there is no timetable for restoration of the glider, but when it’s completed it is expected to hang in the atrium of the museum.
The material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.
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