Everett Graf Letter Describing Dayton Airport (SC-354)

Everett Beecher Graf (1910-1985) of Frankfort, Indiana, was a young mechanic who had recently started working on mail planes at Johnson Flying Service in Vandalia, at the Dayton Airport, when he wrote this letter to his sister-in-law Fay (Dona Faye Spurgeon Graf, 1906-1998), wife of his older brother Otto J. Graf, Jr. (1906-1966). Everett may have been undertaking the airplane mechanic training course offered by Johnson Flying Service at that time. Everett later returned to Indiana, living primarily in Indianapolis, where he married Marie Kemper in 1943, had children Gretchen and Gary, and was founder and president of Empro Manufacturing, an electrical supply company.

Johnson Flying Service, operated by Edward A. "Al" Johnson (1885-1949), opened in 1921 at a 70-acre field just east of Oakwood, just southwest of the intersection of Wilmington Pike and Patterson Road (near what was later Gentile Air Depot). In 1924, Johnson also incorporated the Johnson Airplane and Supply Company, at 900 South Ludlow Street in downtown Dayton. When the new Dayton Airport at Vandalia was established in 1928, Johnson was contracted to manage/operate it, and Johnson Flying Service moved to Vandalia as well. (For more information about Al Johnson and the Johnson Flying Service, researchers are encouraged to consult the book "What Dreams We Have," Chapter 11, by Ann Honius.)