Lyman Tilley

I remember our great uncle Lyman. Uncle Dee's older brother who lived with our Great Grandmother and Grandfather Tilley off and on over the years. This from our dad:

He learned to be an auto mechanic from his father (Oscar) as did Dee to a lesser extent. Lyman actaully worked as a mechanic before he went to work for Convair during and after WW II. Convarir built the B-24 bomber and the PBY seaplane here for the US miltary and the British. He went to junior college in the LA area (San Fernando?) and lived with Auntie Pearl and Charlie Babbs.

While at Convair, he working on a test stand by the very tall (single) tail section of a Navy version of the B-24 Liberator, when he fell and his ring caught on a protruding bolt. He nearly lost his finger, but a fall from that height would have killed him. Ultimatey, he was asked to move temporarily to New Mexico to work on Convair Hustler B-58 Air Force superfast jet bomber. When that contract wound down, he tried to return to Convair in San Diego. When he returned, Convair was shocked to learn that he had no college degree. As a lead supervisor, his confreres all had bachelor degrees, or more, mostly in engineering.When he was laid off, he went to wiork for Maclellan Buick in La Mesa where he quickly rose to position of service manager. While there, he met and married Micky (Mildred).

He had the Tilley personality and was a very nice person. He also had a mastoid condition and had several surgeries over the years, one or more not very successful. Mastoid surgery was very primitive during that era. I assume that his ear problem, like mine, kept him out of the military during WW II, plus he was working in a critical defense industry which might have kept him our in any event.