By Anita Messina
Ted Eiben recalls
the first time he came to Port Byron to visit one of Port Byron’s
gifted artists, Lindy Burke. He drove through town and noticed “the
most beautiful building, the school.” A slight shake of his head
speaks words of incredulous disappointment at its present state with
weed trees growing on the roof, loose bricks at its corner and
windows boarded over. “The school is a spot you don’t go to
anymore,” he said.
Lindy listed the
village’s retail vitality as it was then when the school was young
and filled with life: two butchers, about 30 busy stores. Slowly Port
Byron became a crossroads village for people hurrying nonstop to
east, west, north, south places.
He and Lindy were
– as people said back then – “an Item” when they were both
students at Cornell. Then life’s unexpected detours sent each in
different directions. Ted was just a thesis short of a PhD, studying
wildlife conservation in 1941when his detour took him to Pine Camp in
Watertown as a second lieutenant in a tank battalion. “Draftees got
$31 a month, but as a second lieutenant I got $100,” he said.
December 7
changed everyone’s orders. Ted’s battalion was on its way,
dodging German U-boats that silently and unseen scoped our east
coast, assessing the possibility of attack sites. Ted’s convoy
floated through the Panama Canal and crossed the Pacific to New
Patagonia where Ted was made tank commander.
Not long after he
arrived at New Patagonia, the colonel called Ted into his office and
told him orders had just been received from Washington, and Ted was
to pack his gear immediately and report for flight training in
California. What wisdom was this? Tanks to planes? He boarded a P63
King Cobra for the flight back to the states. He had to laugh: the
miserable P63 with its 37-mm cannon in the middle and 4 machine guns
mounted here and there was Ted’s first time ever on a plane, and
here he was headed to California to learn how to fly combat planes.
There must be some mistake. If there was “some mistake” the
military didn’t fess up to it and Ted reported for training on the
B26 Widow Maker. He learned to fly anything with wings even a
4-engine cargo plane. “Holey moley,” Ted said, “I can walk
faster than that plane can fly.” He earned his wings in 1943 and
was ordered to Tulsa, Oklahoma to train on A26 attack bombers.
Attack bombers
were diametrically opposed to wildlife conservation, where Ted
thought he would spend his working days. Instead flying a plane –
any plane – was Ted’s post-war choice of the career he most
wanted to pursue. Although he has continued to appreciate wildlife
and animals in general, instead of returning to the profession
Cornell had prepared him for, when World War II ended he continued to
fly, ending his sky-high professional years as a glider instructor in
the Southern Tier.
Now, his feet
planted firmly on the ground, Ted settled down here in Port Byron to
spend joyous years with Lindy. He served his new community as a
member of the school board before starting a quiet life devoted to
memories of happy days with Lindy. His days now are comforted by
caregiving step-daughter Suzanne Burke McBath, his three-legged dog
Molly, Molly’s veterinarian, Dr. Schnabel and Suzanne’s dog,
Yada, “the dog that rules the yard,” Ted said. Near the kitchen
table Ted keeps a framed picture of a Spitz named Prince, a greatly
loved pet during his younger years. Riding in sultan comfort on
Prince’s back is a rescued kestrel, the feisty falcon once called
sparrow hawk. When Suzanne learned that Mabel Clark’s dog, a
crippled three-legged dog needed a home, she thought of Ted. Mutual
devotion was instant. When asked what breed she is Ted said, “Molly
is not pure any one thing. She’s a pure combination.”
Seemingly
insignificant coincidences weave through a person’s life, sometimes
reflecting what once was; sometimes what’s yet to be. In the 1930’s
Curtis Aircraft built the F96, a small fighter plane called
Sparrowhawk. Funny how history repeats itself in small ways.
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