MY BOOK
MY TWO FAMILIES
On December 4, 1991, the day that Pan American World Airways ceased operations, Newsweek ran an article about the airline’s history, beginning with the statement: “This is not a story about planes. It’s about romance…. It may be hard for today’s all-too-frequent flyers to remember that once, air travel was an adventure; that airlines once had a soul. Pan Am certainly did.”
It was that feeling of “soul” that I recognized when I first set foot on Pan Am property for my interview to become a stewardess. The year was 1965 and I remember the strange sense of familiarity—like I had encountered something new and yet felt right away at home. For many years I wondered why this company felt so deeply similar to my own family. It wasn’t until after I had spent many years putting together the clues—including all of the information I knew about my own family and everything I could find about the family of Juan Trippe, Pan Am’s founder—that I began to understand.
My father’s father was John Davey, an amazing man who, against all odds, revolutionized the world’s thinking about our natural world and the environment. You’ve probably never heard of him. A hundred years ago he was a household name and was known throughout the world as the “Tree Doctor”—practitioner of a science that took him fifty years to develop. John and his sons went on to develop the Davey Tree Expert Company, which continues today under the careful stewardship of its employees. Though John died in 1923, our family life seemed permeated by his gentle spirit, and the stories of the early hardships as well as their joys have stayed with me since childhood.
Juan Trippe was the founder of Pan Am and, ironically, his dramatic personal family history mirrors that of his company. More colorful than fiction, there is a quality of tragic opera or Shakespearean tragedy to the stories of his family as well as his company and as a psychoanalyst, I have been intrigued by its relevance.
So what in the world would a Tree Expert Company in Kent, Ohio, have in common with Pan American World Airways, for many years the world’s most glamorous airline, but which went out of business in 1991? And what in the world would a nature-loving tree doctor like my grandfather and a prestige-loving airline titan like Juan Trippe have in common?
Former Pan Am employees say "Our blood runs blue."
Davey Tree Expert Company employees say "Out blood runs green."
My book answers these questions with a series of stories that bring alive the colorful and eccentric personalities of the most interesting people I’ve ever known or studied—my two families.
Travel with me into the history of the famous and infamous happenings of Juan Trippe’s grandparents, the couple that inspired the story of “My Fair Lady” and the most notorious thief of the era. Journey with my grandfather as he rises from a lad in England who couldn’t read or write to an internationally recognized “Tree Doctor” settled in Ohio. Hear about my amazing father’s adventurous life, traveling internationally when almost no one did and hear of his many adventures, including saving all of the trees in Central Park in 1928 and inventing the world’s first RV. Read not only about these prominent patriarchs, but about the women and families who made their work possible with their tireless and brilliant support.
My book will share all of these stories as I have experienced and learned them, drawing from my ability to make meaning from my psychoanalytic practice to create a narrative about loyalty, integrity, hard work, adventure, and last but not least—soul.
MY BOOK
MY TWO FAMILIES
On December 4, 1991, the day that Pan American World Airways ceased operations, Newsweek ran an article about the airline’s history, beginning with the statement: “This is not a story about planes. It’s about romance…. It may be hard for today’s all-too-frequent flyers to remember that once, air travel was an adventure; that airlines once had a soul. Pan Am certainly did.”
It was that feeling of “soul” that I recognized when I first set foot on Pan Am property for my interview to become a stewardess. The year was 1965 and I remember the strange sense of familiarity—like I had encountered something new and yet felt right away at home. For many years I wondered why this company felt so deeply similar to my own family. It wasn’t until after I had spent many years putting together the clues—including all of the information I knew about my own family and everything I could find about the family of Juan Trippe, Pan Am’s founder—that I began to understand.
My father’s father was John Davey, an amazing man who, against all odds, revolutionized the world’s thinking about our natural world and the environment. You’ve probably never heard of him. A hundred years ago he was a household name and was known throughout the world as the “Tree Doctor”—practitioner of a science that took him fifty years to develop. John and his sons went on to develop the Davey Tree Expert Company, which continues today under the careful stewardship of its employees. Though John died in 1923, our family life seemed permeated by his gentle spirit, and the stories of the early hardships as well as their joys have stayed with me since childhood.
Juan Trippe was the founder of Pan Am and, ironically, his dramatic personal family history mirrors that of his company. More colorful than fiction, there is a quality of tragic opera or Shakespearean tragedy to the stories of his family as well as his company and as a psychoanalyst, I have been intrigued by its relevance.
So what in the world would a Tree Expert Company in Kent, Ohio, have in common with Pan American World Airways, for many years the world’s most glamorous airline, but which went out of business in 1991? And what in the world would a nature-loving tree doctor like my grandfather and a prestige-loving airline titan like Juan Trippe have in common?
Former Pan Am employees say "our blood runs blue"
Davey Tree Expert Company employees say
"our blood runs green"
Depictions of John Davey from his era, including a drawing from a young Dr. Seuss (right)
My grandfather after his first publication (left) &
Juan Trippe measuring the globe (right)
My book answers these questions with a series of stories that bring alive the colorful and eccentric personalities of the most interesting people I’ve ever known or studied—my two families.
Travel with me into the history of the famous and infamous happenings of Juan Trippe’s grandparents, the couple that inspired the story of “My Fair Lady” and the most notorious thief of the era. Journey with my grandfather as he rises from a lad in England who couldn’t read or write to an internationally recognized “Tree Doctor” settled in Ohio. Hear about my amazing father’s adventurous life, traveling internationally when almost no one did and hear of his many adventures, including saving all of the trees in Central Park in 1928 and inventing the world’s first RV. Read not only about these prominent patriarchs, but about the women and families who made their work possible with their tireless and brilliant support.
My book will share all of these stories as I have experienced and learned them, drawing from my ability to make meaning from my psychoanalytic practice to create a narrative about loyalty, integrity, hard work, adventure, and last but not least—soul.
