Everything Is Complicated These Days...

Tomorrow our family has a corporate meeting. It involves me, my three sisters, my mom, and two cousins. Our family has a working farm that has been passed down for seven generations. One generation ago they decided to incorporate it in order to distribute shares. That means we have to have a corporate meeting once a year.

It sounds like this year might be pivotal. Our accountant wants to raise their fees. Our insurance company wants to run credit checks on all shareholders. I've been thinking about these things while listening to our government discuss the economy. A simple little family farm has entered the 21st century!

I don't envy the next generation. One of my sisters has three girls; one has one boy; the other has an adult daughter with three children, and one cousin has two children. As shares are passed down through time, there will be an exponential number of shareholders in the farm. Decisions will probably be harder to make as family members increase, and it will be more difficult to get everyone together. Where will it all lead?

p.s. I'm the secretary... that's probably the reason I'm complaining. I have to keep track of all this stuff!

Philadelphia!

I took these photos one morning as I was walking to work in Philadelphia. We are going back for a visit!

My Dad and NCR

My father was a geek. He was an engineer by trade and math was his hobby. By day he worked in Research and Development at NCR (for forty years). At night he taught math at the University of Dayton. For fun, he would sit at his computer in the basement and make up math games. He had a computer that ran on DOS. This was before either Microsoft or Apple existed.

He taught my sister and me math by teaching us Black Jack and a game called 3-5-7. He taught us to play chess, and he read to us every day. He was a strict disciplinarian. We had to sit at the table until we finished our vegetables. Some nights we would still be sitting there when he came home from teaching his math class.

I was inspired to write this last Saturday, when we visited the Carillon Park in Dayton. There were many exhibits featuring NCR (the National Cash Register Company). It was a major industry in the city, and a big part of my childhood. NCR had a grand, sprawling, beautifully appointed park for use by its employees, where we went to swim and where we had picnics to celebrate birthdays. Every year they held a grand Christmas party for all the children of employees in their auditorium. My high school graduation was held at the NCR auditorium.

NCR was founded by John Henry Patterson in 1884. My father spoke often of John Henry Patterson. His mother, Julia Johnston Patterson, was a distant relative of ours. The prolific inventors, Colonel Edward A. Deeds and Charles F. Kettering, were involved with NCR in the early days. My father worked with the group that developed "NCR paper" which took the place of carbon paper. The process involves the "encapsulation" of ink; the same process that gave birth to the development of "time-release" medicines.

This is a photo of one of the original NCR machines on display at the park.

I learned something fascinating about NCR last Saturday. The story was told in a book called The Secret in Building 26

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This is Building 26 at NCR.

This story began during World War II. The Germans had invented a code called "The Enigma Code". The British developed a code-breaking machine to decode it. Then the Germans complicated the code by adding a fourth rotor to their machine, making it once more impossible to decode. A group at NCR, working in Building 26 and led by a man named Joseph Desch developed a 5,000 pound electromechanical machine called the "Desch Bombe" that was able to decode the new German code. My sister told me she has seen a documentary about this on PBS, but I had not heard of it before.

This is a photo of the "Desch Bombe".

By the way, Joseph Desch attended the University of Dayton, where my dad attended and later taught. I am proud that I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. Not many people know much about it, but it does have an interesting history. Some very smart people came from there, including my father.

Carillon Park - Part III

We visited the park Saturday, from 10:00 a.m until 4:00 p.m. There was a lot to see! I decided to keep the NCR story for a separate post, so here are some random photos of interesting things we saw that day.

This is a steam pump. It reminded me of something Jules Verne-ish, which is very cool!

This is the Corliss Engine. It supplied both electrical power and steam heat for the National Cash Register Company from 1902 to 1948.

It looks a bit Jules Verne-ish to me, too.

This view reminded me of a scene like the end of "Planet of the Apes". It was a little disconcerting to see this clock tower, which I was used to seeing on the top of building in town; and here it was sitting on the ground!

Then there was the old train station. Inside, it reminded me of the old Fort Washington station, where I used to wait for the train to take me to work in Philadelphia.

Nice memory.

Carillon Park - Part II

Presenting Part II of our visit to Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. My family celebrated my sister's and my birthday there over the weekend.

You enter the park through the modern main building. Then you stroll along a series of historic buildings. The first one you come to is an old one-room schoolhouse.


Going into the old schoolhouse:


Inside the old schoolhouse: there is a pot-bellied stove, an organ, a military map showing the country as it looked during that time, with the Indian territories.




The old-fashioned desks with McGuffey Readers. McGuffey Readers were written by William McGuffey when he was a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I went to Miami, as did my grandfather, two great aunts, an uncle, and my sister. On the campus there is a McGuffey Hall and a McGuffey Museum.


A very up-to-date Molly trying out the old desk and writing slate:


Another sister of mine brought her little grandson to this exhibit. When he saw the desk with the holes for the inkwells, he said: "oh, that hole must be where the computer cord went"!

Along the path, you come to a series of homes, starting with the most rustic and getting a bit more fancy as you go. First, Newcom Tavern, built in 1796, the oldest surviving building in Dayton:




The William Morris House, built in 1815 of locally quarried limestone:




This doesn't look like a home, but it was built to be a home:








This is a replica of the Deeds Barn. Colonel Edward A. Deeds and Charles Kettering worked here with a group of engineers and inventors. They became known as the "Barn Gang". They invented the electric starter ignition for the automobile.



That's enough for today! It takes Blogger forever to upload these photos... Tomorrow I will write about the founding of the National Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio (where my father worked for forty years, in Research and Development).

Carillon Park - Part I

This carillon is the centerpiece and namesake of Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. Carillon concerts are held every Sunday. The park also contains 30 buildings and structures that have been moved here to exhibit the history of Dayton and the imaginative and creative work that has taken place here. The park is located on a 65-acre campus near the University of Dayton.


For her birthday, my sister wanted to visit the park. She wanted her three daughters to experience the fascinating history presented there. In fact, I think we all learned something. I had not been there since my own childhood, and so many new exhibits have been added since then. Exhibits showing the work of important researchers and inventors working in Dayton are displayed in their original settings. The buildings in which they worked have been either moved or recreated here, along with many of the tools with which they worked and examples of their inventions.

My sister's family arriving:



My mom and stepdad arriving:


Probably the most well-known men who worked in Dayton were the Wright brothers. Their workshop is here, containing much of the original furnishings and tools. The plane they flew at Kill Devil Hills is on exhibit here.






Orville and Wilbur Wright:


Orville's home in Dayton :


The Wright Cycle Shop in Dayton










There were many other exhibits in the park, documenting achievements of other creative people in Dayton, including the founders of the National Cash Register Company and the inventor of the modern automobile ignition. I will have to show you more of them tomorrow. I have much to do today after a busy weekend celebrating birthdays!