No. 18975 Edward Andrus Terhune Jr.
Photograph from Ticknor, Caroline, ed. New England Aviators 1914-1918, Their Portraits and Their Records. Vol. 2 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 360.
Edward Andrus Terhune, Jr., was born June 30, 1895. The family was living at 2 Brent Street. In 1897 when Edward was 2 years old, his parents, Edward and Emma, purchased the house at 54 Mellen Street (then a different number) from a developer. Edward senior was a salesman; the 1910 census shows him as selling shoes. Edward senior was born in Newark, New Jersey, and Emma was born in Boston.
Edward’s brother, who was 7 years old at the time, also served in the first World War.
Edward Andrus Terhune, Jr., attended Dorchester High School, then Tufts College, graduating cum laude in the class of 1917 with a degree in Structural Engineering. He played quarterback on the 1917 football team, and pitched on the1917 baseball team. At 22 years of age he enlisted at Boston, Feb. 18, 1918, and was trained at the M.I.T. Ground School, and U.S. Naval Air Station, Key West, Fla., where he became a Temporary Instructor. He studied flying-boats at the U.S.N.A.S., Miami, Fla.; and land-planes with the U.S. Marines, Curtiss Field, Miami, Fla. He was commissioned Ensign, July 10, 1918, and was sent overseas, and trained in bombing and gunnery at Moutchic-Lacanau, France; he was then attached to the Northern Bombing Group at Calais, France (Champagne, Field B). Later he was stationed with the Italians at Malpensa, Italy, and received an Italian br[evet]. Back in Massachusetts he was assigned to the Naval Air Station in Chatham on March 25, 1919. Returning home from the war, Terhune married Gladys Thomson of Brookline, on March 29, 1920. Aerial Age Weekly of August 2, 1920 mentions that he was one of the new aerial policemen, whose duties would include fire patrol and pursuit of auto bandits. He was discharged on September 20, 1921.
He organized one of the first commercial aviation companies in the country, and he operated the first aerial taxi and express company in the northeast. He went on to become the Treasurer and General Manager of the Eastern Aircraft Corp. In 1920 he attended the third Pan-American Aeronautic Congress and Exposition, and his title then was General Manager of the Eastern Aircraft Corporation.
The Boston city directory from 1920 and 1921 listed entries for Edward junior working in South Boston as treasurer, and living in Wollaston, presumably with his parents, since Edward senior was also shown living there. The Brookline Directory from 1924 listed Edward junior living in Brookline. The Boston city directory from 1926 had him working in East Boston as a salesman with a home in Swampscott. The 1930 and 1940 censuses listed him as living with Gladys and his children Edward A. and Richard T. in Swampscott.
In 1930 his occupation was manager in electrical specialty. In 1940 his occupation was sales manager in electric refrigeration. His World War II draft registration card showed him living at a residence hotel in Evansville, Indiana, with mailing address 12 Dale Street in Swampscott, and the contact person was his wife. He was employed by Servel, Inc. a manufacturer of gas refrigerators.
In 1940 the family dog, a German Shepherd, exhibited a “violent” dislike of the local postal carrier’s uniform that caused suspension of deliveries on the street. In the face of an order to dispose of the dog, “Richard and Terry” Terhune pleaded with the Selectmen for a reprieve until the return of their father. [was the third Edward called Terry?] On his return Edward said he was “going to bat for his dog.”
Sources:
Aerial Age Weekly. Aug. 2, 1920.
Bevan, Lynne J. and Pell, W.H. Dannat, editors. Catalogue of Delta Upsilon. (New York, 1917) , 256.
Boston Directory, 1895-1898. Online at Boston Athenaeum.
Boston Globe. Sept. 17, 1925 and August 8, 1940.
Hildreth, Thomas, Member American Aviation Historical Society email, email of February 6, 2019.
Flying Magazine, volume 9. (May, 1920), 248.
Gardner, Lester D., comp. Who’s Who in American Aeronautics. (New York, 1922), 98.
Suffolk County Registry of Deeds. Deed Nov. 9, 1897 from James F. Haddock to Edward A. and Emma G. Terhune Book 2482 p 223 pl. 2263.595
Ticknor, Caroline, ed. New England Aviators 1914-1918, Their Portraits and Their Records. Vol. 2 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 360. online at:
https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/newenglandaviatvol2tick
US Census on Ancestry.com 1910, 1930, 1940