Infancy photos on Flickr

Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire by jmc4 - Church Explorer

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"In Sacred memory of Frances, born of the illustrious and ancestral family of the lords of Berkeley, daughter of the most honourable Henry , Baron Berkeley and his wife Catherine sister of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and most dear wife of George Shirley of Staunton, knight, to whom she bore 4 sons, two of whom were summoned to their heavenly home in infancy, and one daughter. She was lady of the highest chastity, modesty, integrity, faith in God and love for her husband, and splendidly equipped with the glory of all other virtues worthy of such a family. Piously and calmly she ended this mortal life in childbirth and was called to the company of the immortals on the 29th of December in the year of our Lord 1595 aged 31 years.

For her husband and her children she left behind a most greavous sense of loss.

George Shirley, grieving and sorrowing, has set up this monument and ordained that with her, to whom when living he was united in wedlock in the hope of children, he be invited to her tomb in death, together in the hope of the resurrection at the last day.

Death which untimely tore thee from my bed and robbed my home

Shall one day give me back with thee to wed in this thy tomb "

George Shirley 1622 and 1st wife Frances Berkeley 1598 who died in childbirth

George kneels with his 2 sons, in front of wife Frances and daughter Mary with 2 infants in cradles. Underneath lies a skeleton, a reminder of what they will become

Frances was the daughter of Henry 7th Baron Berkeley and Katherine www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9496809132/ 3rd daughter of Henry Howard (the 'Poet Earl'), Earl of Surrey ex 1547 and Frances www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/9493951767/ daughter of John de Vere 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell. www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/14513115062/

George was the son of John Shirley 1570 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/sKgCZz of Staunton Harald and Jane heiress daughter of Thomas Lovett 1572 www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/5356352947/ of Astwell by Elizabeth Fermor of Easton Neston

He was the grandson of Francis Shirley 1571 & Dorothy Giffard www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1G500z

Francis Shirley had bought the former priory lands here from the Crown in 1539

Both his father and Shirley grandfather having already died, at the age of 13 after the death of his other grandfather Thomas Lovett , his custody, wardship and marriage were given by the Queen to Henry McWilliam & wife Lady Cheke

He studied at Harford College Oxford before "presenting his services at Court"

George & Frances married 22nd February 1586 at Callowden, near Coventry

Children

1. George b/d 1587 died an infant

2. Henry 1588-1634 m Dorothy daughter of Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex and Frances daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham (parents of Sir Robert Shirley 1656 of Staunton Harold www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/44XiwC )

3. Thomas 1594-1654 described as an antiquarian

4. John died an infant

1. Mary 1595-1630

Frances was "struck with a deadly disease lying in childbed and seeing herself on her deathbed, she sent for a famous and holy priest whom she had honoured for his learning, innocensy and sanctity of life, to assist her with his prayers at her last hours. She gave her blessing to her children, took her leave and gave her last farewell to her husband recommending unto him her surviving three little children, most earnestly praying and desiring that he would have a care that they might be instructed and brought up in the fear of God and the true Catholick religion,and having made a general confession of her whole life, she received with great fervour and devotion the blessed sacrament, and by divers miracles she was visited by the heavenly courtiers St Peter, St John & St Thomas of Canterbury on whose day she died ...... "

George m2 Dorothy www.flickr.com/photos/52219527@N00/2401560660/ daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broadhinton Wilts by Anne flic.kr/p/j5QVHF co-heiress of John Barwick of Wilcot.: Dorothy was the widow of Henry Unton

According to son Thomas, Sir George "had spent 3 whole years in mourning and solitary widowhood", before

"following his sute verie hard, but doth nowe meane to desist without shee will be brought to qualifie the conditions of her obigations "

Dorothy's "pre nup" on her marriage to George shows she wasn't taking any chances. -

" First she doth require to reserve her own living entire to herself, to bestow the commodities of it to her own pleasure, without any controls; secondly, she doth demand a £1000 yearly jointure; third, £500 land to be tyed upon her son, if by any good means there may be one gotten; fourthly, if it so fall that her husband and she should fall out, she doth require £500 a year out of his living, and to live apart from him with that added to her living of Faringdon".

George was created a baronet in 1611 having loaned King James £50 the highest sum in the county

George was suspected of being a Catholic, although mindful of the fines imposed, he outwardly conformed to the church of England.. (If a Papists refused to come to church on Sunday, they were liable to a penalty of 20 pounds for every lunar month during which they absented themselves). He was placed on the list of suspected Papists in Northamptonshire. All his armour and weapons were removed from Astwell House in his absence overseas in 1618 on the plea that his servants were recusants. Lord Exeter, then Lord Lieutenant, thereupon wrote to the Privy Council on his behalf that "he had always been loyal and forward in service and declared himself no recusant". Three years later his arms were restored to him. A letter to Dr. Lambe, Chancellor of the Diocese of Peterborourgh, from four of the local clergy, suggests that they thought very strongly that his attendance at their services was more than a mere formality. He was perhaps one of those who had "true unity, which is most glorious."

"May it please you, Sir, Whereas we whose names are hereunder written are intreated by Sir George Shirley of Astwell in your Countie of Northampton Baronet, to certifie our knowledge to your worship of his conformities in coming to the church and hearing devine service and sermons there, upon Sundays and Holldayes, according to the lawe in that case; we do hereby certifie you that the said Sir George Shirley (being an old gent. and his house farr from the parish churche) and having an auntient privileged chappell in his house, hathe, according to the booke of Common prayer, service red in the same chappell by Mr. Jones. a Batchelor in Divinitie and Chaplen in his house, who hathe of him a yearely stipend for reading prayer and preaching there, to which service and sermons himselfe, his Ladie and his familie doe come verie orderly, and we doe further certifie your worship that we ourselves doe verifie often every yeare in the absence of his said chaplen, or when we are thereunto entreated by the said Sir George Shirley, come thither and read service and preache in his his said chappell to him, his Ladie and his familie; and this with remembrance of our humble dutie we committ you to God, and rest.

However in the words of his son, Thomas, George died on 27th of April 1622, aged 63, "in the bosom of his mother, the Roman Catholick Church". "His piety was so remarkable in his large and bountiful alms, that he merited the glorious title of father and nourisher of the poor, relieving during the great dearth, 500 a day at his gates"

The monument was put up in 1598 after 1st wife Frances died. In 1596 he contracted with Garrett and Jasper Hollemans to put up a monument at Wappenham, Northamptonshire where her father was buried, but he evidently changed his mind about the location and had it erected at Breedon instead. .

The Shirley family bought the manor after it was surrendered to the Crown in 1539

books.google.co.uk/books?id=_vQRAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&...

www.shirleyassociation.com/NewShirleySite/NonMembers/Engl...

- Church of St Mary & St Hardulph, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire

Sir Edmund Boyd Osler by Shannon Stafford

OSLER, Sir EDMUND BOYD, businessman, politician, and philanthropist; b. 20 Nov. 1845 near Bond Head, Upper Canada, fourth son of the Reverend Featherstone Lake Osler* and Ellen Free Pickton; m. first 1868 Isabella Lammond Smith (d. 1871), and they had two children who died in infancy; m. secondly 3 Sept. 1873 Anne Farquharson Cochran (d. 1910) in Balfour, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and they had three daughters and three sons; d. 4 Aug. 1924 in Toronto.

Unlike his brothers, Edmund Boyd Osler chose to forgo university and face the world with the education he received from his parents and the grammar school in Dundas, Upper Canada, where his father was the Anglican rector. In the late 1850s, still little more than a boy, he took a job at the Bank of Upper Canada, which was struggling with bad railway and land loans exposed by economic depression. Its demise in 1866 laid bare the price of mismanagement, a lesson Osler carried with him when he joined with fellow employee Henry Pellatt to launch a firm in Toronto that offered stockbroking, investing, and insurance services.

The new partners rode confederation’s wave of optimism to some success, and Osler gained a reputation as an enterprising and trustworthy broker. It was likely his standing that attracted a group of promoters trying to establish the Dominion Bank in 1869 and raise $400,000 in capital. When asked to find subscribers, Osler accepted the challenge. He understood the importance of the business connections offered by the Dominion’s principal founders, among them Whitby businessman James Holden, and saw too that financing for his own firm might be obtained by cultivating a close relationship with the new bank. His enthusiasm, however, was not enough to raise the capital. The bank’s promoters were themselves divided over whether to buy the Royal Canadian Bank, which was in trouble but had established branches and customers, or to build from the ground up. By 1870 the Royal Canadian was off the seller’s block and the Dominion’s promoters were again searching for capital.

A break appeared when a dispute erupted between William McMaster*, the president of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and James Austin*, a leading director. Austin resigned and was soon approached by Holden to support the Dominion; by 1871 the bank had opened with Austin as president. Osler became a shareholder but, more important, he was now connected to an influential network of contacts, especially Austin, who was impressed by this aspiring financier and appears to have been his mentor. Osler in turn learned how a sound reputation could win the confidence of nervous investors.

Just as timely for Osler was the combination of large increases in banking capital and the development of an unprecedented level of share issues on the Toronto market. In September 1871 Pellatt and Osler joined the newly reorganized Stock Exchange Association. The firm published weekly stock and bond market reports, which provide some insight into its operations and Osler’s milieu. In 1874 the firm was enlarged to include Pellatt’s son Henry Mill* and Augustus Meredith Nanton.

During the trading boom of the 1870s Osler built a good business, gradually generated some wealth, and settled into Toronto’s elite. He began to associate his name and fund-raising talents with such public causes as the fledgling Hospital for Sick Children, which made him a trustee in 1878. Through much of his early years, it is not hard to imagine, Osler found success partly through his father, who had ties with the city’s Anglican establishment. What is certain is that his relationship with Austin flourished. Austin secured a directorship for him at the Dominion Bank after Holden’s death in October 1881. The position allowed Osler greater access to bank financing and gave standing to his new brokerage, Osler and Hammond, which he established in 1882 with Herbert Carlyle Hammond, former cashier of the Bank of Hamilton.

Osler’s capitalist activities sky-rocketed in the 1880s. He was quick to pursue interests that must have seemed the future of such a large country, especially western land development, railways, and navigational ventures. In 1882, for instance, he was a founder and the managing director of the Ontario and Qu’Appelle Land Company Limited. His first railway undertaking, that same year, was the Winnipeg Street Railway, a scheme largely devised by Austin and his son Albert William*. Osler’s job was financing. When he succeeded, interest in his abilities grew in Canada’s other commercial centre, Montreal. Soon he was advising George Stephen, a member of the syndicate responsible for building the Canadian Pacific Railway. The railway company sold a major portion of its western land grants in 1882 to a group of capitalists headed by Osler and William Bain Scarth*. A founder of the Canada Southern Steamboat Company Limited in 1883, Osler had also begun investing large sums in railway schemes in Ontario, where his expertise and connections brought him the presidency of the Ontario and Quebec Railway. Its takeover by the CPR in 1885 gave him a seat on the board of the transcontinental. Associated with a promising national railway system, he concentrated increasingly on western projects and the development of his Winnipeg branch, Osler, Hammond, and Nanton, which had been launched in 1884 by his protégé A. M. Nanton.

Osler staked the future of his wealth and business on western development and invested in land that promised to appreciate in value when railways reached across the dominion. The CPR’s completion in 1885 began the process that Osler envisioned and by 1896, when economic conditions dramatically improved and settlement was made more attractive, Osler began to realize profits from his real estate ventures. Newcomers needed land and an array of financial services, an opportunity not missed by Osler and Hammond, which developed a network that linked British and eastern Canadian investors with western borrowers. The North of Scotland Canadian Mortgage Company Limited, the Canada North-West Land Company, the Dominion Bank, and to a lesser degree the Trusts Corporation of Ontario all facilitated this flow of money. Branches of the Dominion Bank were opened after the turn of the century at points where Osler had business ties, while Osler, Hammond, and Nanton managed institutional investments in western mortgages and debentures. Osler’s firm also began offering insurance and serving development more broadly by selling the bonds and debentures of western municipalities to British investors. In addition, a good deal of the firm’s business followed the CPR’s drive into the Kootenay mining country of British Columbia, as did Osler’s private investments. In 1897, for instance, the Monetary Times (Toronto) identified him as a prominent shareholder in two stock exchange listings, the War Eagle mine and the Consolidated Cariboo Hydraulic Mining Company, which had its head office in Toronto.

In 1901 Osler became president of the Dominion Bank. He would, however, play almost no role within the Canadian banking system other than giving addresses at annual meetings. Rather, he was a capitalist in banking. On assuming the presidency, he turned over his seat on the stock exchange to his son Francis Gordon, who had joined Osler and Hammond in 1895. Osler Sr nonetheless remained in control of the firm, which continued to concentrate on western business. Having watched the west grow, he was always conscious of the vital role that foreign and eastern investment played in its development. When economic turmoil surfaced in 1907 and slowed progress there, Osler answered western critics of the banks by pointing to very large western loans, which far exceeded bank deposits in the western provinces. In 1913, when prairie farmers and others argued for subsidization of the Canadian Northern Railway, Osler, speaking from a CPR standpoint, denounced any support. Despite his belief in the future of the west, his business ties to Toronto, where he operated increasingly in concert with Wilmot Deloui Matthews*, weakened the currency of his opinion in many western quarters.

Success had brought calls for Osler to enter politics. He answered them for the first time in late 1891, when he joined the Toronto mayoralty race with the support of Goldwin Smith* and a team from the city’s establishment. His “silk stocking” candidacy fell flat and he was defeated by Robert John Fleming. A poor speaker, he had not warmed to popular demands for Sunday streetcars nor evidently, had he comprehended the commitment required because he had conducted his affairs as usual and even travelled to England on business. The observation made in the family history, that he “had little appetite for politics,” may help explain this behaviour. At the same time it raises questions about his return to the House of Commons as a Conservative for Toronto West in 1896, the same year he was president of the Board of Trade, and his success in four subsequent contests.

Osler’s political ideals are not easily discerned. During the 1896 election, when the Conservatives were divided over the Manitoba school question and party leader Sir Charles Tupper* had embraced remedial legislation to restore the rights of Catholic Manitobans to publicly funded education, Osler opposed Tupper’s position. Although he was said to “believe in all Conservative doctrine,” he had a streak of independence; he apparently defined his conservatism somewhat differently than the pragmatic side of the party, which expanded the common ground between French and English, Catholic and Protestant. The electoral victory of Wilfrid Laurier*’s Liberals prompted Joseph Wesley Flavelle*, a rising business Titan in Toronto, to suggest a rejuvenation fund for a Conservative party that he thought was falling into serious decline. Osler and the few other prominent Tories canvassed rejected the scheme. One wonders if Osler ever wished he had backed Flavelle’s initiative during the 14 years the Tories were in opposition.

Osler’s continued political success leaves many questions unanswered. Like his fellow businessman and Conservative counterpart in Toronto East, Albert Edward Kemp, he was not apt to “overwork Hansard.” He was more likely, it seems, to talk in the quiet of parliamentary lounges, avoid fracas in the house, and attend to regional concerns as chairman of the executive committee of the Ontario Conservative Association. Consequently, his tenure in parliament was largely uncontentious and uneventful. Near the end, a newspaper reported “after seventeen years in the House Osler speaks,” but this comment is somewhat misleading. In 1901 and 1903 he had tangled with finance minister William Stevens Fielding over budgets and railways. Osler, who sat on the CPR’s executive committee, was himself targeted in the house in 1903-4 as a representative of the undue influence of railways in Canadian politics. As well, he was at the centre of a controversy that would play a small part in the defeat of Laurier’s Liberals.

In December 1910 Osler shared the national spotlight with Fielding after the collapse of the Farmers Bank of Canada. Considered by some to be “well fitted” to be minister (had his party been in power), he had been a critic of the bank since its inception. When it applied to the Treasury Board to open for business in 1906, he privately warned Fielding that it was a fraud and that its application should be denied. More alive to the political price of refusing, the minister ignored the warnings of Osler and a good many others. On the bank’s failure, he headed for cover and blamed Osler for not giving him more evidence to work with. For Osler and his colleagues the collapse offered a useful tool to undermine the Liberals’ business credibility in the debate over reciprocity during the election of 1911. It was Osler’s last contest, for he declined to run in 1917; he was 68 and had had reservations about the Union government formed months before by Conservative leader Sir Robert Laird Borden*.

The start of World War I in 1914 had brought financial panic to Canada and a crisis in mortgage financing. The prime minister’s office was inundated with calls from across the country, and especially the west, for a moratorium on debts. Osler, afraid that Borden would succumb to the political pressure, reminded him that, since 1912, many British investors with mortgage securities from the west had not received payments and that a moratorium would likely scare off future investment, to the great disadvantage of western development.

By the time the war had broken out, Osler was well known in Toronto for his civic and philanthropic efforts as well as his discreet financial endeavours. He had helped fund the new Toronto General Hospital, and was president (1899-1921) of the Ontario Rifle Association. A major purchaser of art – in 1903 he had bought a large collection of works by Paul Kane* – he was a benefactor of the Art Gallery of Toronto, and in 1912, the year of his knighthood, he had been instrumental in the creation of the Royal Ontario Museum. Osler’s cultural tastes are reflected too in the selection of the Toronto architectural firm of Darling and Pearson to design the Dominion Bank’s magnificent head office at Yonge and King in 1913-14, and many of its new branch buildings.

In the early months of the war a less impressive side of Osler was revealed by the “German professors issue” at the University of Toronto, where he had been a member of the board of governors since 1906. The sons of a German-born professor at University College took exception to an anti-German speech by their school principal. The protest led two newspapers to demand the dismissal of all three of the university’s German-born professors. Osler and his fellow governors concurred but President Robert Alexander Falconer* claimed that they had done no wrong. After a compromise was found, placing the professors on leave, Osler tendered his resignation but it was not accepted.

His reaction in this issue was likely symptomatic of the single-minded determination throughout most of the dominion to defeat the enemy, a spirit that proved more productive, in Osler’s case, when applied to war finance. He was a major contributor to the Canadian Patriotic Fund. Through Osler and Hammond, and its Winnipeg branch, dominion bonds were sold to institutional investors, easing the burden of government debt that was piling up in New York. In the west, the firm’s influence was also demonstrated in the four Victory Loans campaigns of 1917-19, during which more than $246 million worth of bonds were sold through Osler, Hammond, and Nanton. When the war ended, Osler, one of Toronto’s richest men, turned his attention to the economic aftermath and preached a gospel of caution. To each board member of the Dominion Bank he distributed a copy of Poor Richard’s almanack, Benjamin Franklin’s homage to frugality.

Canada had been transformed by the war, and in its wake Canadian businessmen encountered an increasingly hostile public. Many wanted villains to blame for the economic and social woes that had befallen the country; money-men and banks were fair game. As a bank president and a financier who had served the needs of western agriculturalists and municipalities, Osler took offence at allegations that banks were not loaning farmers sufficient money. The fallout from the war made profits unseemly and Osler, like other presidents, found himself in the somewhat uncomfortable position of having to defend the profitability of Canadian banks, a situation that had arisen before the war and grew more pressing after it.

From the porch of Craigleigh, his 13-acre estate in the Rosedale area of Toronto, Osler looked out at a Canada that was very different from the one he had known as a boy and as a young businessman. He understood the changes that had taken place in business. Finance capitalism, in particular, had emerged as a critical component of national development. In 1921, at age 76, Osler retained a high corporate status beyond his bank and Osler and Hammond, as the president of three companies, vice-president of another, and a director of eight.

Within his family circle, his wife had passed away in 1910, and his brothers, Featherston, Britton Bath*, and Sir William*, predeceased him. Sir E. B. Osler died at Craigleigh in 1924. He left an estate worth almost $4 million and a most unusual will. In his final years he had evidently written letters to friends and acquaintances promising money in recognition of their support; a special fund was set up from his estate to cover these obligations. All claimants had to do was present Osler’s letter and his promise would be made good.

Ford Trimotor 5-AT-C N414H by Jack

Serial Number 74

MFR Year 1929

If 5-AT-74 could speak, the stories she could tell of her incredible history. In her infancy from 1929 to 1931, she was one of the first Tri-Motors equipped with twin metal floats, accumulating nearly 250 hours as the Ford Motor Company's factory demonstrator as a seaplane on the Detroit River. Then sold to Pan Am in 1931, she flew scheduled routes out of Miami into Central America.

In 1935, 5-AT-74 moved south of the border and began operations in Mexico City, for Cia Mexicana de Aviacion registered as XA-BCX and later XA-BKS. It came back to Pan American in 1936 and then back to Cia Mexicana de Aviacion. In May 1941, it moved further south to Guatemala operating for Cia Guatemalteca de Aviacion in Guatemala City. 5-AT-74 stayed in Guatemala operating as LG-AFA until 1950.

Recovered by Robert Waltermire in March 1950, 5-AT-74 was returned to the United States and was reconditioned for use as an aerial sprayer fighting a grasshopper plague. At this time Northwest Agricultural Aviation Corp out of Choteau, Montana operated it.

Between 1956 and 1959, 5-AT-74 had a series of owners before finally falling into dereliction and disrepair in Florida. 5-AT-74's salvation came at the hands of John and Katherine Louck of Manmouth, Illinois. When Louck found the aircraft in Florida, it was in less than pristine condition being described as "full of frogs, snakes, bugs, etc." He worked for two weeks cleaning and making the aircraft airworthy to ferry it to Monmouth, Illinois. A myriad of problems caused the trip to take 68 days covering 1700 miles. Louck bought 5-AT-74 with the intention of barnstorming it, and he did! It was reported that in one year 5-AT-74 carried 17,000 passengers, 2800 of which were carried in one five day period at Rockford, Illinois. Louck carried a total of 100,000 passengers in 5-AT-74 while he owned it.

During 1963, it was leased to TWA for a cross-country series of flights starting from Los Angeles, California to Newark, New Jersey. Total time in the air was 27 hours, 48 minutes and total en route was 54 hours, 7 minutes. In February 1965 Louck sold 5-AT-74 to American Airlines in New York City. 5-AT-74 was present at the New York City World's Fair in 1965.

Chuck LeMaster purchased her for barnstorming in the early 1970’s before selling her to Mr. Seibold for “a fairly large amount” in 1977. Shortly afterward repeated its 1965 cross-country trek. This time it made the cross-country flight in company with a Scenic Airlines Twin Otter that was operating as a camera ship. Starting in Long Beach, California it flew to Las Vegas, Nevada. From there 5-AT-74 flew over Lake Mead and Hoover Dam and on to fly the length of the Grand Canyon. 5-AT-74 finished its cross-country trip in 7 days ending at New York's Kennedy Airport. While in New York, 5-AT-74 flew over New York Harbor and past the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty. Later it flew on to East Hartford, Connecticut to appear at Pratt and Whitney's 60th anniversary celebration before returning to Las Vegas, Nevada.

During 1983, 5-AT-74 was flown out of the San Fernando Airport by Art Scholl and Bernie Godlove during a brief movie career in which it appeared in the movie "To Be or Not To Be". It's beautiful rainbow was temporarily painted out by dozen's of cans of women's silver hairspray in order for it to represent Hilter's personal German Ju-52. Bernie was the senior (number 1) captain at United Airlines system wide, with over a thousand hours in the Ford. He also headed up a 'type rating' program, as a type rating was required to fly the airplane commercially. Many commercial pilots simply wanted the honor of having "FO-5" (the designator of the Ford Tri-Motor 5AT series) stamped on the back of their licenses. One of those commercial pilots was Bernie's son, Bryan, who is the Captain of the Ford today! Bryan has been at the controls for over twenty years and also has over one thousand hours in the Ford. Bryan's thirteen-year-old son, Kelby, is an up and coming pilot and hopes to someday be the third generation Godlove at the controls of 5-AT-74.

In June 2003, by special invitation, 5-AT-74 participate at the Ford Motor's Company's 100 Year Centennial Anniversary Celebration in Dearborn, Michigan. It joined the EAA's Ford Tri-Motor 4-AT, NC8047, in a special event where the Ford Tri-Motors landed at the original Ford Airport and what was first paved runway in the world (now the FMC Dearborn Proving Grounds) which was the hallowed ground where both airplanes first took flight over seventy fives years ago. A few weeks later 5-AT-74 also participated at Oshkosh Air Venture 2003 flying in a 'Tri-Motor Reunion' with the EAA Ford Tri-Motor, a Bushmaster 2000, a Stinson Tri-Motor and a JU-52.

In September of 2003, 5-AT-74 joined nearly 30 other historic golden age aircraft in the recreation of the National Air Tour from 1932, flying over 4500 miles in 18 days. The National Air Tour 2003 was simply an experience of a lifetime for everyone involved and could easily have volumes written about it. In the mean time, you can read much more at www.nationalairtour.org.

In November 2003, 5-AT-74 returned to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport at the request of the City of Phoenix to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first flight in a Ford Tri-Motor from the airport that Grand Canyon Airlines (initially known as Scenic Airways) on November 18, 1928. Guests on board was the honorable Mayor of Phoenix, Skip Rimza.

On September 4, 2004, Grand Canyon Airlines celebrated the 75th birthday of 5-AT-74 by offering rides to the public along with GCA employees, friends, and family members. One of the highlights was being honored with special guest Janie Stanton, the grand-daughter of William B. Stout who designed the Ford 80 years earlier. Janie sat in the right seat on the first flight of the morning, 75 years to the day of 5-AT-74's first flight in Dearborn, Michigan.

Mr. Seibold has begun plans for a Grand Canyon air tour history section in the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Valle (40G) to show his collection of a 1917 Standard J-1, a 1927 Stinson Detroiter SM-1, a 1928 Curtis Robin, a 1929 Travelair 6000A, and of course the 1929 Ford Tri-Motor. He is currently on a quest to acquire at least one of every airplane known to fly air tours for Scenic Airways and Grand Canyon Airlines. The purpose of the display will be to educate the Grand Canyon visitors of the rich aviation history and evolution of the air tour industry of the Grand Canyon. Ironically, the battle continues as the latest round of rules and restrictions from the National Park Service and Federal Aviation Administration have imposed a nearly fatal blow to the air tour operators.

“It’s a travesty,” John Seibold says. “Now after over 80 years of providing millions of visitors the most spectacular and least intrusive way to see the Grand Canyon, our Government and the extreme environmentalists want to remove our service from the list of solutions to preserve and protect it. I truly believe many want to eliminate air tours completely. Our industry has evolved from the early, arguably much noisier and intrusive Tri-Motors to extremely safe and ultra-quiet VISTALINERS, yet we are still punished for what I believe is a user conflict of the Grand Canyon. If he were alive today I wonder what Parker Van Zandt would say if he knew that the industry he began is now in jeopardy of its extinction. The Tri-Motor began a marvelous mode of enjoyment of seeing the Grand Canyon from the air. I want our public to be educated about this issue and understand that the Ford Tri-Motor and Grand Canyon have intertwined histories that should not be forgotten.”

Currently 5-AT-74 is in its home and can be viewed at the Valle Airport (40G) which is located between Williams and Grand Canyon on HWY 64.