Okle: A Passing in Review

Okle Vivian Rouse was born in the Midwest in 1902. These are his own writings on a long, full life. Through poverty, wars, success, and failure he reflects on a lifetime that saw the birth of the motor and industrialization, the first helicopter, and air mail's first night flights. He was one of the first to achieve an Air Mechanic rating and met and photographed early aviators such as Charles Lindberg, Lady Mary Jane Heath, Anthony Fokker, and Emilio Carranza Rodriguez. He and his wife Fay traveled the country by car and rail. Okle writes with blunt honesty, caring, and subtle humor of nearly the entire 20th century seen from a small town man's humble perspective.