Trafford Publishing: The Eakle Family of Progress Corner

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The Eakle Family of Progress Corner

by John A. Eakle

230 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0975; ISBN 1-4120-0606-6; US$21.00, C$24.50, EUR17.50, £12.50

The Great Depression, biplanes, a battleship, and a family band. This was the Eakle Family of Progress Corner. Read about their life at a Midwestern crossroads between two world wars.

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About the Book

Life at an unusual midwestern crossroads during the Great Depression.
In the early 1930s, the rural intersection of Illinois Hwy. 23 and US Hwy. 30 was a crossroads not only for transportation but for history.
Aviation advances
The Great Depression
World Upheaval
At this crossroads a resourceful Eakle family experienced all this as well as family triumphs and tragedies.
After World War I, Paul Eakle was one of the unemployed or underemployed vets looking for steady work to support his wife Mary and their young children. In 1924 he jumped at the chance to work for the newly formed US Air Mail Service as an emergency landing field operator in Illinois.
The third of eight Eakle children, author John Eakle tells the family's story. The family lived in DeKalb County, Illinois, eventually settling at the airport near Waterman. They called it "Progress Corner" because the airport was at a major Midwestern crossroads: the intersection of Illinois Hwy. 23, US Hwy. 30 and the Burlington railroad tracks.
Living in a building on the airfield which also housed a US Weather Bureau reporting office, the family witnessed the beginnings of early aviation. Boeing Air Transport and other early airlines landed such pioneer airliners as the Boeing 80-A and the Ford Tri-Motor.
John tells how his close-knit family weathered tragedies and the Great Depression while also performing across the country and into Canada as the Eakle Family Band and Dance Troupe. And what did they travel on? The family's home-away-from-home - a 41-foot-long parade "battleship" float named the USS Illinois which Paul built in an airplane hangar.
It's a time and experience worth reading about.

About the Author

JOHN EAKLE'S MANUSCRIPT, nine years in the making, tells the story of his large Midwestern family living in a time and place giving a unique glimpse of pre-WWII America - and of what was to come.
A school teacher more than 30 years, John carefully researched the facts and taped interviews with family and friends to preserve this history. He completed the book shortly before he died May 16, 1998.
The third of eight children, John A. Eakle was born Sept. 23, 1923, in Des Moines, Iowa, where his father attended Des Moines University. The family moved back to Waterman, IL, a few years later where John attended school, graduating from high school in 1941. He entered the Army Air Corps in October 1942. Between July 1944 and June 1945, he flew 108 combat missions over Burma in P-47 Thunderbolt fighters. There he earned an air medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Distinguished Flying Cross. In 1983 he retired from the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel.
After returning from the war, John married Mary Weishaar in 1946. In 1949 they settled down to raise a family when daughter Terry Jo was born. John attended and graduated from Northern Illinois University (formerly State Teachers College) with a BS and MS in Education. He taught more than 30 years, including 28 years in DeKalb, Illinois, junior and senior school special education, retiring in 1981.
Active in the community as well as aviation, John served two terms as president of the DeKalb Classroom Teachers Association, held a commercial pilot's license, taught private pilot ground school, and flew in the Civil Air Patrol. He was also a member of the First United Methodist Church, DeKalb, IL; the Experimental Aircraft Association; the Retired Officers Association; World War II Combat Flyers; and the Kishwaukee-DeKalb Kiwanis Club.

Sample Excerpts or Table of Contents

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