Elizabeth Schneider's INSPIRATION
GRAND – DADDY BILL WHEATLEY
Grand-Daddy Bill was an aircraft test pilot – considered an “astronaut” of yesteryear – and a pioneer in the newly emerging aviation industry in the early 1920s. Fearless and with a daredevil spirit, his earlier jobs included being an Air Mail pilot – a harrowing assignment during the winter months in his adopted hometown of Buffalo, New York. He was also credited with transporting photographs taken at Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 Inauguration in Washington DC, for same-day publication in the Buffalo evening newspaper.
His proudest achievement during his short 37-year life was being the Chief Test Pilot for Consolidated Aircraft Company – primary manufacturer of the PBY Flying Boat and the B-24 Liberator Bomber – both major contributors to the Allies’ air warfare efforts during WWII.
Tragically, during a final test flight in June 1941, before delivery to the British Royal Air Force, the B-24 that Daddy Bill was flying experienced a catastrophic mechanical failure and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. But his heroism, passion for flying, and unbounded desire to conquer the skies lives on in the spirit of today’s astronauts.
GRANDPA GOETZ
Elizabeth’s other grandfather instilled in her his passion and curiosity about the wonders of the universe. A quiet, dutiful blue-collar worker by day and a brilliant, self-taught scientist/astronomer by night, without any formal training, he designed, engineered, and constructed an astronomical observatory in his backyard in Hamburg, New York. The observatory housed a 10-inch diameter telescope that he also built himself, even grinding and polishing the telescope’s mirror. The telescope was situated on an equatorial mount which compensated for the earth’s rotation to permit time-lapsed photography, particularly of Grandpa Goetz’s favorite planet, Saturn.
During summer visits as a young teenager, Elizabeth would join Grandpa Goetz in the evenings as he crawled through the tiny doorway of the observatory to gaze through the telescope into the night sky. Here they would take turns marveling at the details of the surface of the moon, the curious rings of Saturn, or the vast infinity of stars comprising the Milky Way galaxy. This experience left Elizabeth mesmerized, opening her eyes to the expansiveness and enormity of the Universe, leaving an indelible impression on her heart and mind which remains today.