After tying tiny parachutes to each piece of candy, his job was to toss the bars overboard as the plane flew over the heads of racetrack and beach visitors.Beginning in September 1928, and for five years after, Tibbets attended Western Military Academy in Alton, Ill.īecause his father wanted him to become a doctor, Tibbets set his sights on that goal. Through his father's business, he was given the chance to fly in an open-cockpit biplane during a promotion of Baby Ruth candy bars.
It was in Florida, when Tibbets was 12, that he became hooked on flying. I went back to Iowa every summer for a long vacation on my uncle's farm." "The move to Florida didn't sever the ties with the corn country.
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Tibbets wrote that the move provided him the best of both worlds: A life in Florida, plus the chance to escape Florida's summer heat with his mother and sister by returning to Iowa "for prolonged vacations."
His mother and sister remained behind to pack up the house in Des Moines. His son remembered being, at age 9, the first in the family to join him, via a train trip, on July 4, 1924. The senior Tibbets remained in Florida to establish his own wholesale confectioner's business. When he saw the palm trees and felt the warmth of the Florida sun, he decided on the spot that this was for him." later wrote: "He boarded the train in a blizzard and arrived in Miami two days later in bright sunshine. The senior Tibbets went to Florida to visit his mother, who always wintered there, and as Tibbets Jr. Photos: Iowa's five famous Sullivan brothers, World War II casualties.Iowa values carried Donna Reed to Hollywood stardom and an Oscar.Elvis Presley draws 4,000 to Vets for his first Iowa show.Iowa native Bob Feller throws baseball's only Opening Day no-hitter.The senior Tibbets had met his Glidden-born future wife while crossing Iowa on business.Ī turning point came during a particularly nasty Iowa winter.
His father was employed by his family-operated wholesale grocery company, Warfield, Pratt & Howell, that was based in Chicago and had branches in Davenport, Des Moines and Sioux City.