Charles Leland Aplin

Lee Aplin was born in Nampa, Idaho in 1921. He was the son of Charles Olaf Aplin, a farmer and grain elevator agent, and his wife Adeline Iversen Aplin. Lee spent his first couple of years in Idaho and eastern Montana, and then the Aplins returned to the family homestead in Timmer, North Dakota. Charlie and Adie had homesteaded the Timmer farm in 1908 and the family, then including Lee's older brother and sister, originally lived in the sod house they built on the property. By the time the family moved back to Timmer with Lee, the sod hut had been replaced by a wood frame house. Lee spent his happiest childhood years roaming the homestead, exploring the old sod house, swimming with his friends at the old swimming hole, and hunting rabbits. As a young boy he didn't have onerous chores, but he did have two geese, Tom and Jerry, and he took care of the sheep. Most days he walked the mile to one-room schoolhouse, but during the winter a neighbor girl gave him a ride in a horse-drawn sleigh.
Lee's brother, Alton, was 18 years older; and his 14-years-older sister, Lola, died when Lee was only 18 months old. Lee's mother, Adeline, referred to him as her "fall crop", and he was raised pretty much as an only child. Adeline always said that he was a model child and never did anything wrong. (This sentiment astonished Lee's children - the Dad they knew had strong opinions and was never afraid to go his own way.)
Charlie and Adie Aplin provided the DNA for Lee's lifelong love of travel: Charlie had ridden his horse solo from the Dakotas to the Pacific in his twenties, and several years before Lee was born Charlie and Adie had taken the family on a six-week trip to Yellowstone in a covered wagon. She was never happier than when she had "wheels under her". Left to her own devices, she would move frequently and travel a lot. As young farmers before and during the depression they made many car trips through the western U.S. and Canada. Lee learned to drive at 14, and drove the family all the way from North Dakota to Oregon at the age of 16.
When Lee was 8 a barnstorming pilot came to town, and his parents got him a ride in the plane. From then on Lee maintained a deep fascination with airplanes and flying.
Charlie Aplin believed that the prairie should not be plowed, but should be used only for grazing. As the Dust Bowl drought deepened in the 1930, the wisdom of this became evident. As farming wasn't really in his heart, he took a job as a grain-buying agent for Occident Flour when it was offered. He frequently moved with his family, so Lee experienced life in many locations around the prairie. They lived longest in Grenora, in the northwest corner of North Dakota, where Lee went to grammar and high school.
Lee graduated from high school in 1938 and went on to college at North Dakota State in Fargo. There he first studied chemistry, but soon realized that chemistry was not his passion. He switched his major to mechanical engineering and graduated in wartime 1943. He immediately got a job at Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the precursor organization to NASA, where he worked on instrumentation for jet airplanes. His entire organization was drafted into the Navy for the duration of the war, engendering in Lee a lifetime dislike of the Navy and its ways.
One problem he was proud of working on was the collection of airspeed and temperature information from the front of a jet plane. The turbulent air at the front of the airplane was not suitable for collection of such data, and no-one knew how far in front of the plane the air was disturbed. Lee solved the problem by putting the instruments at the end of a long tube - called a "pitot tube" - on the nose of a P-80. Though flight crews and pilots laughed at the awkward-looking P-80 with the 15-foot tube on its nose, the arrangement succeeded in collecting the data and allowed them to understand how and where the turbulence occurred. For several years afterward, jet fighters had pitot tubes on their noses to allow them to collect the data they needed. Beyond that, Lee's pitot tube probably saved at least one life. On an early experimental flight the pilot landed incorrectly and the plane started to flip, but the pitot tube kept the plane from burying its nose in the sand and kept the plane upright; it likely saved the pilot from being killed.
After the war Lee moved to San Francisco, where he met Helen Marie Novak. They were married in 1948, had three children, and settled in Palo Alto. Lee spent most of his career working as a sales engineer in the fields of instrumentation and mining equipment. In this work he traveled all over the world. Lee got his pilot's license and flew a small airplane, and spent much time on photography and working in his wood shop.
After he retired, Lee and Helen moved to Auburn in 1989. Lee enthusiastically pursued his interests in photography, genealogy, hiking, local history, woodworking, aviation, writing, travel, philosophy, his Norwegian heritage, and talking to interesting people anywhere. He was never happier than when he had his family gathered around him for Sunday dinners and holidays.
Lee died peacefully of old age, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his children, Kristin Aplin, LeeAnn Aplin Houck, and Paul Aplin; his grandchildren Tyler Clark, Gavin Clark, Alyssa Bartos, Stephanie Lee, and Erik Aplin; and his great-grandchildren Baxter Boggie, Aela Clark, Jade Clark, and Jayden Bartos.
Friends are invited to attend a celebration of Lee's life on Monday, March 16th at 11:00 am at the Canyon View Community Center, 417 Maidu Drive, Auburn, California.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to Placer Land Trust, www.placerlandtrust.org.