[WWI] Louis Bleriots family backgorund / father

[rob]

Hi,

I found this, there maybe more on French web-sites.:

Born in Cambrai, France, on July 1, 1872, Bleriot was a quiet, well-behaved 
child of provincial, middle-class parents. An introverted small boy who secretly 
dreamed of adventure, he spent a totally uneventful youth in the French 
countryside. Demonstrating inventive and mechanical abilities, he attended 
L'Ecole des Arts et Manufactures, from which he graduated with a degree in 
engineering, while spending his free time on inventions of his own. One of these 
inventions was the automobile headlamp, which he patented and manufactured.

His patent royalties and business profits from the headlamp made Bleriot a 
wealthy young man. As a respected member of the Paris business community, he 
married a well-to-do stocky young woman named Alice Vedere and began fathering 
his six children. Although he was a confirmed family man and led a conservative 
life, Bleriot still harbored his childhood dreams of adventure. At the Paris 
Exhibition of 1900, an aircraft with flapping, batlike wings captivated his 
attention, despite the fact that the contraption had never flown. In his spare 
time, Bleriot began building aircraft with engines that powered flapping wings. 
These ornithopters became an obsession with him, even though he blew up three 
engines, vigorously flapped one machine until it fell apart, and never succeeded 
in getting one off the ground. As time passed, he spent more and more time and 
money on his aeronautic experiments.

Forgetting about his business affairs and diverting all his energies to 
inventing flying machines, Bleriot turned from ornithopters to airplanes. For 
years he designed, constructed, and crashed airplane after airplane. His lack of 
success did not discourage him; instead, it always spurred him on to try again. 
Finally, in 1907, having spent six years and $150,000, Bleriot built a monoplane 
which he managed to fly and land without crashing. Greatly encouraged by this 
victory, he rapidly designed and constructed several new models. However, he was 
still plagued by crack-ups. In November, 1908, flying cross-country in his 
Bleriot X airplane, he entered a fog bank and piled into an oak tree.




Knut Erik Hagen wrote:
> Hei,
> 
> I have lately been working on a project regarding the Bleriot XI,
> but yesterday I got a question that I haven`t been able to find an answer to:
> 
> Louis Bleriot seems to have been from a family of means since he got a good
> education,
> does someone know where the money came from (inherited or his father have a
> well paid job?)
> 
> 
>   Eders
> Knut Erik 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>