Grandpop the mapmaker

Dumfries, Virginia

October 22, 2022

Ok, here’s another “Fitz Story.”

You’ve traveled somewhere in a commercial airliner, right? Of course you have. Have you ever considered how the pilots of your aircraft know how to get to where you’re going? Probably not very much.

When I was a kid I once asked of my grandfather, my dad’s father, “What does he do?” He and his wife (that would be my grandmother,) lived in a nice comfortable big house in Anacostia, Washington, DC. Matter of fact, he had an actual full-sized yard, right there in the city. The lot next to his house, on which should have been another house, was vacant, and part of his property. 1224 Talbert St., SE, Washington, DC. It’s still there: go ahead, Google it. Here……

….. it’s the one on the right. Yeah, and that driveway’s always been that tight.

Anyway, the answer to my question, then, as a kid, was, “He’s a mapmaker.” Oh. Only later, as an adult, did I begin to dig a little more on that question.

So, what’d he do? He made aeronautical charts. Read on…..

Impressed, aren’t you? I was. Here he is: