JOE KELLY
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Column for 9.1.10
Acee Acee Sr. died last Friday. He was 93. To say he lived a full and productive life would be an understatement. Acee was quite a guy.
I just finished reading his obituary. The picture the family selected for the obituary was quite appropriate. A smiling Acee is wearing helmet and goggles, the type worn by pilots back in the day.
Pilots and airplanes are what comes to my mind whenever Acee’s name is mentioned. Acee got his private pilot license back in 1932. He was just 16. Most of us were still learning how to drive a car at 16.
The 1930s were the glory days of aviation. Amelia Earhart was setting records, including being the first woman to fly solo across the North Atlantic. Wiley Post was setting records, too, flying solo around the world.
I can’t remember if Acee told me whether he had met Amelia Earhart or Wiley Post. He could have, though, because both of them flew into the Utica Municipal Airport in Marcy and that’s where Acee spent many of his younger years.
I’ve been looking everywhere for my copy of Ray Ball’s book, “Flying To Marcy.” Acee, of course, is one of the aviation pioneers written about in Ball’s history of aviation in Oneida County. Alas, my copy has disappeared. I probably let someone borrow it and never got it back, which happens to me a lot.
Whenever I talked with Acee Acee, the topic was flying, pilots, airplanes or airports. I loved listening to him talk about the old Municipal Airport in Marcy, which was on the site now occupied by the WalMart Distribution Center. That airport was Oneida County’s first real airport and provided scheduled airline service.
Besides being a pilot, Acee was an aircraft mechanic. In fact, he became the chief mechanic at the Marcy airport during World War II. Speaking of the war, Acee was an instructor pilot and taught cadets at Colgate University to fly. He taught many people how to fly.
But his life was more than flying. This is from his obituary: “Acee owned and operated Clark Mills Farm Supply for 35 years, was Fire Commissioner and Captain of the Clark Mills Fire Department, served as Supervisor for the Town of Kirkland, was on the board of directors for the Clark Mills Sewer District, and taught at Utica and Herkimer County BOCES for several years.”
But what might have been Acee Acee’s biggest accomplishment is to be found well down in the obituary. “Mr. Acee is survived by his loving wife of 69 years, Mary Lou...”
That’s not a typo. Mr. and Mrs. Acee were married for 69 years.
As I said at the beginning of this, I always had fun talking with Acee Acee. I wish I had made time for more of that fun.
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