Rocket PoweR, InteRstellaR tRavel and eteRnal lIfe

Figure 4. This photograph of the house at 823 West Second Street Elmira probably dates from the 1960s. Hungerford family
members lived in this house from 1911 to 1966.
less” furnace was replaced by a “piped job”. Floyd
Hungerford undertook major exterior repairs in 1961. A
new water heater was installed in 1965. 17 This work is
mentioned here because of the confiscation and demolition
of the house by the city described later in this book.
From 1915 Daniel Hungerford was listed in the directory
as “garage owner”, and by 1916 Daniel and Floyd
were listed together as Hungerford Brothers with a
machine shop at 825 (usually 823) West Second Street. 18
The operation was in an outbuilding behind the
house. 19 Hungerford wrote that “We built our Shop—
1914–15 and added north addition 1917” as Charley
Hungerford helped in the initial construction with
Charley Osman [?] the addition. 20
Success in the garage, at least in one point, included
as many as twelve employees. 21 For decades to follow,
from the 1910s to the 1950s, the Hungerford Brothers
garage was the staple business in Elmira for repairing
automobiles and aircraft.
ENDNOTES
1
Notes made June 22, 1992, by the author after listening to a
tape recording made in 1974 of Keith Marvin reading a
lengthier, unpublished version of his “The Wizards of West
Second Street”. One assumes that the data came from
Marvin’s interviews with Daniel Hungerford in 1964.
2
Daniel Hungerford to “Ed & Helen”, August 26, 1966, wrote
that his brother William was born in Southport (New York)
on the Kile [?] Kinsman’s farm; Daniel at the “head of Bird
Creek in Wells Township, Bradford County, Pennsylvania;
Floyd on Jay Street in Elmira; Jennie on Miller’s Farm at Pine
City, New York; father William at Latta Brook; and mother
Mary Ward at Troy, Bradford County, Pennsylvania. He also
noted that his father died at the Lyman Brescre [?] farm in
Mosherville, Pennsylvania; his mother and brother Floyd at
823 W. Second Street; his brother William at the home of his
daughter Vivian Wells at Daggett, Pennsylvania; and his sister
of Gang Mills, New York, in the Corning hospital. The
1930 federal census indicates that farmer Fred Badger was
twelve or thirteen years older than his wife. They married
about 1920. According to city directories in the 1910s, Jennie
Hungerford was employed by an Elmira “manufacturing
confectioner”.
3
Spajic, Igor, Restored Cars , Numbers 139 and 140, March-
April and May–June 2000,
4
Who’s Who in American Aeronautics (1925). Apparently Daniel
Hungerford himself provided the biographical data for this
publication.
5
Daniel Hungerford to Keith Marvin, June 11, 1964. Several of
these inventions are mentioned again later in this work. The
signature is typical of that used by Daniel Hungerford after
the death of his brother Floyd.
6
Unidentified newspaper clip marked by hand “ . . .67”.
4 Daniel and Floyd Hungerford: Rocket Power, Interstellar Travel and Eternal Life, by Geofrey N. Stein