Free Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman by Neal Thompson Page B

with fruit orchards, farm animals, ponds, and fountains. Her sister, Adele, befriended the other Longwood kids (and once created a stir when she became involved with one of the farmhands), but Louise often stuck to herself and, in the other kids’ eyes, was cold and standoffish. In fact, some people at first thought she
was
a DuPont, so sophisticated and superior.
    When she arrived at Principia, her chillydemeanor earned her the nicknames “Frosty” and, after the refrigerator brand, “Miss Westinghouse.” But there was one classmate who didn’t mind—Louise’s boyfriend, George Dietz.
    A boy whom Alan Shepard now considered his rival.

    For Alan, the holiday glow of his meeting with Louise dimmed suddenly, awfully. On Sunday, just two days after Christmas, the Shepards received terrible news from Bart’s brother, Fritz.
    Alan’s cousin Eric had been killed in a plane crash during Marine Air Corps training. It was ruled an accident, although some family members whispered that he may have been hot dogging, taking chances in a machine he wasn’t yet ready to tame.
    Eric was twenty-four and had been eager to join the war. After graduating from the University of Maine, he had joined the Marine Corps and signed up for flight training. He wanted to help other Marine pilots strafe and bomb Japanese ships in the Pacific islands, where the Marines were beginning to turn the tide of the war. Eric had been more than Alan’s favorite cousin; he was Alan’s hero. They’d been good friends despite a five-year age difference. Alan’s spunk seemed the perfect complement to Eric’s quiet serenity. Except for his grandfather, Alan had never lost someone so close to him—arare thing in a family half consisting of Christian Scientists, whose preference for prayer over medicine could sometimes lead to early, unexpected death.
    Eric’s death struck Alan a severe blow. He knew war was a dangerous and deadly game, and he knew to expect the mounting casualties to begin hitting closer to home. But not this close, and not in this way. If an enemy attack had taken his cousin’s life, it might have somehow been easier—he’d have someone to blame. A training accident, though, seemed all the more senseless and wasteful. Alan was deeply troubled and confused by Eric’s death. He sent a telegraph to Annapolis asking for permission to extend his holiday leave and attend his cousin’s funeral. Eric was buried in Massachusetts the day after New Year’s, and Alan wept openly at the service. Then he endured a miserable train ride back to Annapolis.
    Until that time, Alan’s year and a half at the U.S. Naval Academy had been unimpressive; he’d even been threatened with expulsion. His most notable achievements were sailing up and down the Severn River in the academy’s boats and getting lucky with lovely Annapolis crabbies. But when he returned to Annapolis in January of 1943—whether it was the inspiration of his lost cousin or the promising relationship with beautiful Louise Brewer—a transformation began to churn, one that would culminate in a crucial turnaround. Alan started the spring semester with a new intensity and a gritty sense of determination. He locked in tight on two goals. First, he wanted to salvage his shabby academic record—mainly to graduate and become what his cousin Eric now could not: a military aviator. Eric’s death reminded him that he was there to become a flyer.
    The other goal was Louise. His desire for her wouldn’t stop him from dating other women—one of them quite seriously—but he knew that ultimately he wanted Louise Brewer, and Alan would spend the next few years in a relentless pursuit of both goals.
    “I hope I can really accomplish something at Annapolis that will make you proud of me,” Alan wrote to his father in early 1943.

    One of the first signs of Shepard’s new sense of determination was his improving performance and rising status on the crew team. Despite an aversion to team