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24. Golden Years

IT SEEMS THAT on January 7, 1912, a P. A. Van Tassell married A. F. Barr,1 with the Reverend Henry J. Ferreira presiding over the service in Oakland, which was likely held at St. Joseph’s Portuguese Church. Little is known of Barr or how long the marriage lasted, but with the frequency of Van Tassel’s previous marriages, another one is somehow not surprising.

Later that spring, on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, a student-led interscholastic circus was arranged for April 27, including a parade through the streets of Berkeley.2 Topping off the parade was a balloon ascension by Van Tassel. He had developed another new balloon at this time and intended to make test flights with it at Oakland. However, with some prior ballooning experience, Colonel J. H. Pierce, a sixty-four-year-old friend of Van Tassel’s and a citizen of Oakland, served as pilot. Pierce first made a test hop at 3:00 p.m. from the corner of Twelfth and Harrison Streets, with a successful landing at the Piedmont Hills after flying over Lake Merritt. A second flight was arranged. At first the wind took Pierce out toward the Bay but then returned him back toward Oakland. As the balloon continued to descend, he continued to dump ballast overboard. With the shoreline in sight, he landed in the Bay 2 miles from Alameda. He and the balloon were picked up by fishermen and brought back to shore.3 On Sunday, May 26, 1912, Van Tassel made an ascension at Grove Street Park, following a baseball game by the Oakland Giants and the Pennant Bars. At the time, the Giants were a semiprofessional group of African American ballplayers.4

For Independence Day 1912, Van Tassel was hired by O. F. Olsen and other businessmen to make a balloon ascension from the shore of Lake Merritt in the City of Oakland. During the ascent, at roughly 12:30 p.m., Van Tassel dropped several souvenirs of the flight to the crowd of spectators below.5 A man named Clarence R. Townsend of San Francisco made an ascension from Lakeside Park next to Lake Merritt on the same day. With Van Tassel’s instruction, he rose to 6,000 feet and then made a journey around the area for two hours. He landed at Hayward, but after landing, the balloon escaped, returning to the sky without him and continuing on to a second landing in Santa Clara. The balloon was found the next day at Bagnart Ranch, where the drag rope snagged a fence post.6 The following day, the San Francisco Call ran a story titled “Balloon Lands; Pilot Is Missing; Thought to Belong to Prof. Van Tassell of Oakland, but Shoes of Woman Is Only Clew.”7 Constables named Lyle and Maloney managed to deflate the balloon and take it to the local court for storage until it could be retrieved. It was later realized to be Clarence Townsend’s property.8 Later in July, Van Tassel traveled to Santa Cruz to help with the planning of a “naval and water pageant” that, among other things, was to include a balloon race.9 In September 1912, plans were announced for the California Apple Show, to be held October 7–12 in Watsonville. In addition to two US Navy submarines anchored off Port Watsonville for public viewing, Van Tassel was engaged to provide daily balloon ascensions and parachute drops at the show, as well as captive balloon launches for customers. William Ivy was hired to make the parachute jumps from Van Tassel’s balloon. However, on the morning of October 10, the inflated balloon tore from its moorings and sailed away. Very fortunately, youngsters who were helping with the ropes let go in time, or else they too could have been carried away.10 The balloon continued to soar over Castroville and then Hollister, some 20 miles away. According to reports, Van Tassel had planned to take the balloon to the Midwest to partake in a balloon race, but that was no longer possible.11 It also seemed that while performing at the Watsonville show, a vandal had perforated the balloon with rocks, requiring Van Tassel to make hasty repairs. Displaying balloons for events and entertainment was increasingly difficult.

Van Tassel took a hiatus from ballooning through the winter of 1912. In May 1913 it was announced that Van Tassel would take part in a balloon race between balloonists from northern and southern California as a part of Portola Festival celebrations in October.12 In late June 1913, it was also announced that Van Tassel would provide a balloon ascension and parachute drop as a part of Independence Day celebrations at Chehalis, Washington. The event was organized by Joseph M. Rieg of Portland, manager of the American Show Print Company. At the time, Van Tassel was billed as “one of the pioneer aeronauts of the country.”13 Reporters also remembered Van Tassel as the first in the Northwest to make a parachute jump.14 Van Tassel and his balloon arrived in Chehalis a week prior to July 4. The balloon was to be launched from the “old schoolhouse block on Park Street.” With Van Tassel now advancing in age, an aspiring young aeronaut, John Edgar, was hired to make the parachute jump instead.15 Newspapers indicated that Van Tassel and Edgar were considering making a tour of India “to engage in the balloon and airship business.”16

On July 4, high winds delayed the balloon ascension from 4:30 p.m. to about 6:00 p.m. The repaired balloon Diamond rose more than a mile high in the sky, with Edgar jumping and making a perfect descent to a successful landing at Coal Creek, Washington. The balloon continued to float on the wind to the northeast, coming to rest in a large tree, torn and heavily damaged as a result. The balloon was simply abandoned, as the expense of getting it down from the tree was not worth the effort. A planned ascension for Saturday, July 5, was canceled because of the damage to the Diamond.17 Given that the Diamond cost several hundred dollars, the good businessmen of Chehalis pitched in to raise enough money compensate Van Tassel for his damages. In return, Van Tassel offered to make a new balloon and call it Chehalis, with the first ascension being in that city.18 It is clear that Van Tassel made another balloon ascension from City View Park near Portland on October 15, 1913, but it isn’t clear which balloon was used.19

On June 20, 1914, Park’s sister Lillie married Yuba Parks20 at Yuba City, California. It is unclear if Park was in attendance. There are no records of Park Van Tassel making balloon ascensions in 1914, and it is likely that he took time to be with family. However, remembering a life of travel, Van Tassel remained eager to again see other shores. In early 1915, a newspaper announced that Van Tassel would be traveling to Honolulu with two balloons to make flights throughout the Hawaiian Islands.21 However, just weeks after the announcement, the paper said that Van Tassel would not be providing these exhibitions, as the program for a planned carnival was already full.22 Despite this, it seems that Van Tassel traveled to Hawaii anyway, bringing the Queen of the Pacific, owned by Guy T. Slaughter. Government rules precluded flights near Pearl Harbor to protect the fortifications from “unlawful mapping,” and it remains unclear if Van Tassel ever flew in Hawaii during 1915.23 However, the balloon was eventually sold to Joel C. Cohen of the Consolidated Amusement Company. On March 25, 1915, the USS F-4 (originally named USS Skate), a US Navy F-class submarine taking part in maneuvers off the coast of Honolulu, sank, becoming the first commissioned US Navy submarine lost at sea. All twenty-one sailors aboard were lost. A large search ensued, and editors of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin suggested using Van Tassel’s balloon in a captive configuration to try to spot the F-4 from the air.24 It remains unknown if the balloon was actually deployed in this manner.

In March 1917, Van Tassel stayed for a time at the Occidental Hotel in Santa Rosa. He was remembered in the local newspaper for his earlier ballooning escapades at Woodward’s Gardens in San Francisco and expressed interest in a balloon ascension as a part of the Rose Carnival, which was scheduled for May 1917.25 Later that month, it was reported that Van Tassel had offered to fly a new “torpedo-shaped” balloon (probably his balloon-dirigible) for $150. The matter was still under consideration by the Rose Carnival organizers into late March,26 but it is possible that all plans changed when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, and entered World War I, as there are no records of Van Tassel actually flying a balloon in Santa Rosa that year. Van Tassel and assistant Vernon Spencer arrived in Reno, Nevada, on March 8 to make arrangements for a balloon flight on Easter Sunday, April 8, 1917, with his “torpedo balloon,” with Spencer making a parachute jump from 3,000 feet.27

In June or early July 1917, Park made a balloon ascension and parachute jump at Calistoga, California, and attempted to make arrangements to be part of the Napa County Farm Bureau Fair in July 1917.28 In August 1917, Van Tassel arranged to fly his balloon-dirigible in two appearances at the Almond Festival in Arbuckle, California.29 The 1918 influenza pandemic further curtailed Van Tassel’s activities.

Perhaps recalling his time in India, where schoolchildren would imitate the Van Tassel Troupe with toy parachutes of their own, the inventive but aging Park Van Tassel filed for a US patent on a “mechanical toy” on June 16, 1919. The patent described a toy parachute that was shot into the sky with an elastic band, opened automatically, and fell back to Earth, complete with a suspended weight in the form of a man. US patent no. 1,369,504 was approved on February 22, 1921. It was Van Tassel’s only patent. He established the Captain P. A. Van Tassel Toy Balloon Manufacturing Company, a maker of miniature balloon ascension toys, while living at 644 Merrimac Street in Oakland.

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Drawing of a “mechanical toy”—a rubber-band-launched parachute—patented by Park Van Tassel on February 22, 1921 (US patent no. 1,369,504). United States Patent and Trademark Office.

In 1919 Van Tassel and a Lieutenant C. M. Williams were hired by the organizers of the Livermore Stockmen’s Rodeo for a balloon ascension and parachute descent on Independence Day, Friday, July 4. However, strong winds that day forced the event to be postponed to Saturday and then again to Sunday, the last day of the rodeo. With the balloon about two-thirds full of hot air and smoke, a gust of wind blew it to one side and it caught fire. Freed from its moorings, the unpiloted balloon began to rise and then roll along the ground, directly toward a corral of wild horses, in front of the eyes of thousands of spectators. Wranglers quickly sprang to action to get the horses out of the way while the balloon, bounding along in the wind, bounced 100 feet in the air and over the corral, still on fire. It landed in a hay field nearby, coming to rest near a large haystack. By that time the balloon had nearly burned itself out, but a small fire at the base of the haystack was quickly extinguished by a well-positioned fire truck that just happened to be at the rodeo.30

By 1920, Park Van Tassel (now age sixty-seven) was living with his sister Minnie (now age seventy-three) in Alameda.31 In light of his experience with his balloon-dirigible, he assisted with the development and testing of an aerodynamic advertising balloon to help celebrate the sixty-ninth anniversary of the White House, a retail store in San Francisco. The balloon was funded by the Goodyear Rubber Company, and its shape would allow it to withstand winds up to 30 miles per hour rather than just 16 miles per hour for regular spherical advertising balloons. Van Tassel was placed in charge of its operation.32 While the Goodyear Company had some experience with large dirigibles, this was one of its first forays into gas blimps. Its first untethered blimp, the Pilgrim, the first blimp to fly with helium, debuted later, in 1925. In the fall of 1924, Van Tassel was hired as caretaker of the Robert Martland estate at Glen Arbor, California, on the banks of the San Lorenzo River near Ben Lomond and Santa Cruz. Martland, a wealthy member of the California State Auto Trades Association, maintained a house at Oakland and a summer house at Glen Arbor.33 Martland was also a member of the Oakland Aero Club and helped arrange for aviation meets in the 1910s.34 Park Van Tassel’s motivation to be in general seclusion at Martland’s house in Glen Arbor from 1924 to roughly 1930 is a mystery, but it likely had to do with the need to maintain some amount of income leading up to and through the Great Depression, as he was no longer able to maintain the lifestyle required to continue as an aeronaut.

In 1930 Van Tassel (then age seventy-six) left Glen Arbor and returned to live with his sister Minnie at 9423 B Street in Oakland.35 Park suffered from heart disease and slowed down. In late September 1930, Van Tassel was interviewed by Wallace Rawles, a reporter from Oakland. The ensuing article about “Capt. Parks Van Tassel” was carried in small papers nationally. The report reviewed parts of his long career in aviation, suggesting that Van Tassel had “dropped in parachutes from balloons in 46 countries.”36 News of his decaying health was also reported by the Albuquerque Journal.37

Just one month later, on the evening of October 24, 1930, while writing a letter at the dinner table, Park Van Tassel suffered a heart attack and never regained consciousness. His passing made local, state, and national news.38 Both the local Santa Cruz Evening News and the New York Times still managed to incorrectly report his name as “Parks Van Tassel,” with the New York Times incorrectly citing Kansas City as the location of his first parachute jump. Over fifty years of balloon ascensions and harrowing escapades, the aerial magician Van Tassel rather miraculously lived to see his older years. A funeral service was held on October 27, 1930, at 3:00 p.m. at the Grant D. Miller Mortuary in Oakland.39 In the height of the Great Depression and without much in the way of finances, he was buried in an unmarked grave at Evergreen Cemetery alongside his half-sister Minnie, who had preceded his passing by about three weeks, with Park’s sister Lillie surviving both of them.

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