First Man on the Moon.
July 20, 2019 will mark the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. In celebration of the landmark occasion, we wanted to share this story with you about Indiana Theta brother Neil Armstrong ‘55. The story was first published in the book First Man by Dr. James Hansen, and was confirmed to be true by Indiana Theta brother Dean Armstrong ‘57. Enjoy this heartwarming tale!
Emily Perry was five-years-old when she met the First Man on the Moon. It was the summer of 2001, and the former commander of Apollo 11 was seventy-one years old. Nearly forty years had gone by since his own darling little girl, Karen, two years and ten months old, died in January 1962 from brain cancer. Emily was the granddaughter of one of his best friends, Kotcho Solacoff. They had been boys together in Upper Sandusky during the early 1940s. As they each moved into their golden years, the two friends spent many good times together: attending college football games, gliding down ski slopes, and playing golf. No person apart from family members knew Neil as well as did Kotcho.
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| Dean Armstrong (1957), Neil’s younger brother and fellow Purdue Phi, at last year’s dedication of the “Neil A. Armstrong Library” |
Emily unknowingly encountered the First Man one day while he was visiting her grandfather and grandmother at the home of the Solacoffs’ daughter Kathy and her husband, Chris Perry. The girl was the youngest of the Perrys’ three children and a real firecracker. Neil took to Emily quickly, and Emily to him. Soon she had Neil by the hand, leading him on an expedition through her house. “I want to show you a secret, but don’t tell anyone. This is a secret no one knows about.” Reaching the attic, Emily said to Neil, “Peek over the mattress and look down there.” There it was— a great big dead bug. “But don’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “Oh, I won’t,” he whispered back.
Next, Emily led him into her bedroom. “This is my clock, and this is my lamp, and this is my mirror, and these are some of my books. This book is on Winnie the Pooh, and this one is about Sleeping Beauty, and this is Cinderella. And, oh, here is a book about Neil Armstrong. He was the first man on the Moon.” Then she stopped, hesitated for a moment, looked at the nice older man who had come to visit her house, and said, “Oh! Your name is Neil Armstrong, too, isn’t it? Would you like me to read you his book?” Neil gave her a generous smile, then sat down on the edge of her bed. “I would very much like to hear you read a book, Emily. But it doesn’t have to be the one on Neil Armstrong; it could be the Winnie book or the Cinderella book or Sleeping Beauty. Any of them, I would like.” “No, I’d like to read you the Neil Armstrong book, because that’s your name. It’s not a very long book, and it’s very exciting. You’ll see.”
Crawling into his lap and straightening her skirt, the child opened the book and began to read. She was clearly proud to be the one who got to tell this gentleman, such a good friend of her grandpa’s, the story of the First Man on the Moon.
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| Dean Armstrong with Russ Wurster and Joe Fuller |