[PW] aeronaut Leo Stevens?/even more/

[AllenAmet at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/5/2008 4:09:44 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
phasco at earthlink.net writes:

You now  have at least three sources giving his birthdate as 27 Sep 1877, one 
of  them  
primary.  (Primary sources almost always trump secondary,  but one also has 
to apply a good 
dose of detective  logic.)


==============
Hi T.F.
 
  Thanks very much for all this info - it's extremely  helpful.
 
  I agree that Sep 27, 1877 appears in his local obit AND on his WWI  Draft 
Card. And the famous parachute medal has '1876-1944.' At least no one  disputes 
when he died - now that's "primary".
 
  But I still think that he was born several years earlier than all of  
these. Sue W. found an old article in 1897 which described the brothers'  aerial 
exploits (Leo and Frank) and gave their ages as 26 (L) and 24 (F).  That would 
come out to 1871 and 1873. And Frank Stevens did die in 1958  (per NYT) at the 
age of 85.
 
  And in Nov. 1875, an 'Anna Stevens' (his mother's real  name) sued in 
Philadelphia to get her son ("Prince Leo") back from a  traveling mountebank. He 
was at the time, a child acrobat. There were perhaps  two such children with 
this name... and the name of the exhibitor was something  like Willard/Wm Leonard 
Husband, which suggests that the 'Leo' part may  have derived from that.
 
  The earliest Census we have so far for him (w/ diff  wives) is the 1920 
(Julia) and 1930 (Laura). He does say he was born  in Ohio but gives Calif for 
his father (Frank). I wonder if he (Leo) was really  born in Cleveland, as he 
said...
 
  My own guess is that A. Leo Stevens fudged his birth year  deliberately to 
blot out any record of his earliest travails, but that's just a  hunch... The 
1892 article in the Wash Post ('Feelings on a Tightrope') doesn't  even 
mention ballooning.
 
Thanks again!
 
Allen
 
 



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