Flying Home Page #2

But, that very year,

he was hired by the Ford Motor Company

as an automotive engineer - a dream job.

15 December 1940.

The Dearborn Inn is wonderful!

I've lived here for almost a year,

and love sitting in the lobby.

First-class service!

You have given me so much goodness,

with the power of your loving thoughts,

that it is hardly possible

for me to be bad.

3 August 1941.

Dear Mami,

Have you any idea how shy I am?

Too shy to approach someone

to speak to them, or to visit them.

I thought there would be so much going on,

and now I just live for myself.

Thankfully I am far away,

and you need not worry.

4 May 1943.

Just think:

A few weeks ago,

I became an American citizen.

Am investing all my money

in war bonds.

November 1944.

It is difficult to write to you

after so many years of war,

not knowing whether

you have received my letters.

I go dancing. Take Spanish lessons.

Am often alone.

I've hung up a picture of Comano,

with the view from the portico.

I could gather from Walter's reports

of his life abroad

that his mother answered every letter

with at least three of her own -

for 30 years.

Hundreds of letters,

all gone missing in Honolulu.

But my search for Walter's traces

in the New World had only just begun.

My research led me to Wichita, Kansas,

then a center of the

American aviation industry.

The huge companies,

which had lost their Air Force contracts

after the second World War,

were on the search for new markets

and ideas with a future.

For Walter, the chance of a lifetime.

I set off for Wichita.

November 1945.

Dear Mami, Just think:

I now work for the airplane company

Beechcraft, in the state of Kansas.

I'm designing a car for them.

Maybe this will be my breakthrough.

January 1946.

Do you remember

Papa's Electromobile?

I will design a very special car,

which can drive on electricity

as well as on gas.

15 April 1946.

Before my departure from Detroit,

I attended a jazz concert by Lionel Hampton

"and heard my favorite piece,

Flying Home".

I arrived in Wichita last Saturday evening,

with my Ford and all my things,

after a nice 1000-mile trip.

The roads were good,

and I mostly drove 70-80 miles per hour,

overtaking everyone on the way.

Here, everything seems better than

I could have dreamt for.

In the Broadview Hotel, I'll probably

be able to pay a monthly rent.

Wichita, 17 July 1946.

Work at Beechcraft is still wonderful.

I have never been happier in the USA.

I've bought a bed, to be able to

spend the night in the office.

Seven people now work for me

on the Plainsman car.

End of November, 1946.

It is certain that we will

finish the test cars,

as a few hundred thousand dollars

have already been spent on them.

But there is a big question mark over

whether the car will ever be manufactured.

After days of fruitless searching,

I began to fear

that I would find nobody

who could tell me about Uncle Walter's

private life here in Wichita.

But then I came across the name

Walt Burnham,

Uncle Walter's then boss at Beechcraft.

His daughter Pat

had married a certain Dale Rummer,

whom I finally found in Lawrence, Kansas.

Dale was also an engineer.

On the phone, he had told me about

a wonderful wedding present,

which Walter had given him

and his wife Pat.

15 January 1948.

Unfortunately,

the aviation industry is not doing well.

People are losing their jobs.

I surprised I'm even still here.

I can probably still finish the test car.

Working Saturdays now too.

But who knows,

with the Cold War against Russia,

and rearmament,

the aviation industry might soon

have plenty to do again.

It is so terrible, that there will be

war again in the foreseeable future.

Handicapped down here...

Following my visit to the Rummers, after

travelling alone for such a long time,

I suddenly had substantial back-up.

The two elderly engineers took me to

the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City.

There was no stopping Dale and Bob

on their trip down memory lane.

And the result of my research in Kansas?

A hybrid car that was never completed,

and two small inventions, in which

Walter Wyss was apparently involved.

Not exactly much.

5 August 1948.

It seems to be cursed. Nobody is

interested in the project any longer.

Mami, I don't know what it is,

but I think that if you

had not kept writing to me,

I would probably never

have written again.

24 January 1949.

Dear Mami,

There is something inside me

which prevents me from coming home.

I wish I knew exactly what.

It is all the more so,

when I think of seeing you again.

Still, you are the only reason for

my visit to Switzerland.

In the spring of 1949,

Uncle Walter bought a plane ticket

to Switzerland.

He had hoped to come with news of

his breakthrough at Beechcraft.

He was 38 years old -

and he came home alone.

7 May 1949.

After ten years as an American,

I flew back to Switzerland,

in 20 hours,

from New York to Zurich.

The pleasure at seeing my

dear parents again was great.

I had always wished

for Walter's hopes of success

with the Plainsman to come true,

his revolutionary hybrid car, which was

invented half a century too early.

But in August 1949,

the Beechcraft company

dropped the Plainsman project.

One month later,

Uncle Walter lost his job.

He stopped enjoying

his work as an engineer,

sold his war bonds,

and invested his money in securities.

Walter began to live off

playing the stock market,

and turned to his hobbies:

Photography, languages, and travel.

Los Angeles, August 1950.

Dear Mami, I do not think that

I can continue to live alone for long.

But finding a woman

with whom I will fall in love

and wanting to marry her,

is a huge problem.

If I send you letters of

former girlfriends...

I invited a girl to dinner,

another to a show.

The one I liked best

is getting married in a month.

We drove around in her big car.

The more I think about it,

the worse it gets.

Dear Mami, My last interesting

girlfriend is a black woman,

whom I met on the plane

from Mexico to L.A.

She will give birth in two months,

and is called Martinique.

What an experience

for a bachelor like myself.

I had already met Walter's former

girlfriend in Los Angeles in 2003.

Six years later,

I visited Martinique Landois a second time.

The former dancer was now over 80,

and lived with her son, Raoul.

When I asked Martinique

during my first visit,

how her love story with Walter

had actually begun,

she first said:

"Maybe I shouldn't tell you..."

Los Angeles, 8 February 1954.

It is wonderful,

that you write about Martinique so kindly.

Mami, You have a strange son,

that he is more able to be friend with

a woman of a different race,

and that it is more mutual,

than with someone of the same race.

Mami,

Martinique is not the way with men,

that you think.

Don't write so nastily about her,

that makes me sad.

Martinique is very Catholic,

not like you and I,

and never misses Mass on a Sunday.

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