My paternal grandfather, who I knew as Opa, was born in 1899, the year the first automobiles were displayed in Iowa at the Linn County Fair. Opa celebrated his 11th birthday on April 29, 1910, less than a week before the first documented powered, heavier-than-air airplane flight in Iowa occurred.
On the day after Opa’s 23rd birthday, WOI Radio in Ames was granted a license to operate Iowa’s first radio station.
He told me about dating with a horse and wagon. “The horse knew the way,” he said with a wink…