Editing Eddie Rickenbacker (section)

== Early life ==

Rickenbacker was born Edward Rickenbacher in [[Columbus, Ohio]].<ref name=":17">{{Cite web |title=Eddie Rickenbacker Collection - Auburn University Special Collections and Archives |url=https://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/find-aid/101/eddie.htm |access-date=2022-09-04 |website=lib.auburn.edu}}</ref> He was the third of eight children born to [[German language|German-speaking]] Swiss immigrants, Lizzie (née Liesl Basler) and Wilhelm Rickenbacher.<ref name=":17"/> Later in life, he changed the spelling of his last name to Rickenbacker and adopted a middle name, Vernon.<ref name=":17"/>

[[File:Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House 02.jpg|thumb|left|Rickenbacker's [[Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House|childhood home]]]]

His father worked for breweries and street-paving crews and his mother Lizzie took in laundry to supplement the family income. In 1893, his father owned a construction company.<ref name=":17"/> With a loan from Lizzie's parents, the couple purchased a lot and built a small home at [[Captain Edward V. Rickenbacker House|1334 East Livingston Avenue]], {{Convert|2|mi}} southeast of downtown at the edge of the city limits in 1893.<ref name=":2"/><ref name=":17"/> The house lacked running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity.<ref name=":17"/> This is where Edd, as he was called by his parents, spent his childhood.<ref name=":2">Lewis, W. David, ''Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century.'' Baltimore'':'' Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005,  p. 1. {{ISBN|978-0-8018-8244-9}}</ref>

Growing up, Rickenbacker worked before and after school.<ref name=":3">Rickenbacker, Edward V., ''Rickenbacker: an Autobiography.'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 20. {{ISBN|978-0-13-781005-5}}</ref> He helped in the garden where the family grew potatoes, cabbages, and turnips and cared for the family's chickens, goats, and pigs.<ref name=":3"/> He earned money by delivering papers, setting up pins at a bowling alley, and selling scavenged goods.<ref name=":3"/> He gave most of his earnings to his mother but spent some on [[Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco|Bull Durham]] tobacco, a habit he picked up from his older brother Bill.

As a child, Rickenbacker was accident-prone.<ref name=":8">Rickenbacker, Edward V., ''Rickenbacker: an Autobiography.'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 24. {{ISBN|978-0-13-781005-5}}</ref> Before entering school, he toddled into an oncoming horse-drawn streetcar and fell {{Convert|12|ft}} into an open [[cistern]].<ref name=":8"/> His brother rescued him from a passing coal car twice.<ref name=":8"/> Once, he ran back into his burning school building to retrieve his coat and nearly paid for it with his life. Sixty years later when producing his autobiography, he found significance in these close calls. He came to believe that God had repeatedly saved him for a higher purpose.<ref>"When a Man Faces Death," pp. 16, 28. Eddie Rickenbacker papers, 1915–1972, Ohio State University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbus, Ohio. and "Rickenbacker" (1967), p. 367.</ref>

Young Rickenbacker had an artistic side and enjoyed painting [[Watercolor painting|watercolors]] of animals, flowers, and scenery.<ref>Rickenbacker, Edward V., ''Rickenbacker: an Autobiography.'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 14. {{ISBN|978-0-13-781005-5}}</ref> He tried to design a perpetual motion machine, but, his father berated him for wasting time on an invention with no purpose.<ref name=":9">Rickenbacker, Edward V., ''Rickenbacker: an Autobiography.'' Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1967. p. 28. {{ISBN|978-0-13-781005-5}}</ref> He was also "sort of the leader" of the Horsehead Gang, with whom he smoked, played hooky, and broke streetlamps.<ref>Life Story, vol. I, pp. 8, 15, 17. Eddie Rickenbacker papers, 1915–1972, Ohio State University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbus, Ohio.</ref> With the Horsehead Gang, he constructed pushcarts that were a precursor to the [[Soapbox Derby]]. Once, the Horsehead Gang took a "roller coaster ride" in a quarry cart and his leg was run over and badly sliced. After the [[Wright brothers|Wright brothers']] first airplane flight, Rickenbacker tried to "fly" a bicycle outfitted with an umbrella off of his friend's barn roof.<ref name=":9"/>

The summer before Rickenbacker's fourteenth birthday, his father was injured in a brawl. After being hit in the head with a level, Rickenbacker's father was in a coma for almost six weeks before his death on August 26, 1904.<ref>"Laborer's Skull Fractured by Two Blows with a Level,"&nbsp;''Columbus Evening Dispatch'',&nbsp;July 18, 1904.</ref> His assailant was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison.<ref>Lewis, W. David. ''Eddie Rickenbacker: An American Hero in the Twentieth Century,'' Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2005. p 15.</ref>