{"id":3507,"date":"2013-05-02T15:41:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T15:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=3507"},"modified":"2024-04-04T09:36:57","modified_gmt":"2024-04-04T13:36:57","slug":"researching-uncle-cledos-life-spurs-several-oh-wow-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/researching-uncle-cledos-life-spurs-several-oh-wow-moments.html","title":{"rendered":"Researching Uncle Cledo\u2019s Life Spurs Several \u2018Oh Wow!\u2019 Moments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: In this article, Scott Phillips writes about several \u201cOh Wow!\u201d genealogy moments he had when he researched a remarkable member of his extended family: the brilliant scientist Cledo Brunetti. Scott is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past\u00ae genealogy services.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

While I really enjoy every aspect of genealogy and family history, if you are like me, you really treasure and celebrate those amazing \u201cOh Wow!\u201d moments when you make an unexpected research discovery.<\/p>\n

For me one of these exciting genealogy research moments, which actually resulted in me doing my best Happy Dance (something like this<\/a> that you do not<\/em> want to witness), happened when I was looking through GenealogyBank.com<\/a> for information on one of my wife\u2019s great uncles, Cledo Brunetti. I had not done much work on my wife\u2019s \u201cUncle Cledo,\u201d but I had become intrigued by a number of family stories that this fellow was involved in sophisticated research on behalf of the United States. So off I went in search of the story of Uncle Cledo.<\/p>\n

As I said, Oh Wow! My very first research discovery was a 1946 newspaper article that confirmed a whopping four of the family stories I had heard about Uncle Cledo.<\/p>\n

\"Radar,<\/a>
Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 9 February 1946, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, it reported that Dr. Cledo Brunetti worked for the Bureau of Standards for the U.S. government. The old newspaper article went on to say that he was with a group instrumental in the development of the proximity fuse for American munitions, was involved in the creation of the first transistor radio (about the size of a pack of cigarettes), and had a hand in the invention of the very first printed circuits. Not a bad start to my ancestry research, especially since a subsequent newspaper article included the fact that Uncle Cledo was actually the Director of the Ordinance Division of the Bureau during World War II.<\/p>\n

Then I opened another amazing research find! This 1947 news article reported that Uncle Cledo was introducing a \u201cpersonal vest-pocket broadcasting station\u201d for radio communications. One half was so small it fit in a tube of lipstick and the other half was on a calling card. This certainly seemed to be the beginnings of what I had been told was his development of the \u201cDick Tracy Wrist Radio<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Radio<\/a>
Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, Washington), 16 February 1947, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Best of all, this 1947 article featured a picture of Uncle Cledo!<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, Washington), 16 February 1947, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then surprise, surprise! In a 1948 newspaper I found an article entitled \u201cDick Tracy Radio May Come True\u201d and who do you think was the inventor quoted? Yep, none other than Uncle Cledo and he was talking about having one made as a Christmas present for President Truman!<\/p>\n

\"Dick<\/a>
Omaha World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), 11 August 1948, page 14<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A 1949 newspaper reported (with some wonderful photographs): \u201cDick Tracy\u2019s Wrist Radio Comes True.\u201d Yep, Uncle Cledo really did it!<\/p>\n

\"Dick<\/a>
Omaha World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), 20 February 1949, page 26<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I found a 1961 newspaper article that surprised even my wife, Mary Kay, Cledo Brunetti\u2019s niece.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/a>
San Diego Union (San Diego, California), 21 April 1961, page 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This old newspaper article quotes Uncle Cledo, in his role as president of the Grand Central Rocket Company, discussing his work on space rockets and how NASA could get a man on the moon\u2014and his testifying before the House Space Committee in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n

Wistfully, Mary Kay told me how much I would have loved meeting Uncle Cledo, and then she related how Uncle Cledo had given her and her family a private tour of the Lick Observatory<\/a> while on a family vacation in California. It\u2019s such a small world\u2026my great uncle James Vanek was the man who accompanied the Warner & Swasey telescope parts on the train from Cleveland, Ohio, to the observatory where it was installed.<\/p>\n

I thought I was done with my genealogy research on Uncle Cledo when I decided to do a quick Google search to augment my GenealogyBank.com<\/a> information, and I found one more amazing item. It seems that ever since 1975 the world-premier award in nanotechnology, awarded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is named the \u201cCledo Brunetti Award<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the biggest Oh Wow! moment you have had in your genealogy efforts? I\u2019d sure love to hear about it! Please share your ancestor stories in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Phillips writes about his many surprises when he researched a remarkable member of his extended family: the brilliant scientist Cledo Brunetti.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12557],"tags":[3888,45,3885,3898,3892,3893,3897,3895,3899,2105,3889,3891,3896,2437],"class_list":["post-3507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy-stories","tag-brunetti","tag-christmas","tag-cledo-brunetti","tag-cledo-brunetti-award","tag-dick-tracy-wrist-radio","tag-grand-central-rocket-company","tag-institute-of-electrical-and-electronics-engineers","tag-lick-observatory","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-scientists","tag-transistor-radios","tag-u-s-bureau-of-standards","tag-warner-swasey","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88247,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3507\/revisions\/88247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}