Our Founders
Vinton Pierce Ostrander
In his working life, Vinton was an executive of the Boy Scouts of America. A few years after retiring in 1971, Vinton took up genealogical research and succeeded in tracing his Ostrander lineage back to the progenitor, Pieter Pieterzen of Amsterdam.
With wife Ruth as helpmate, Vinton contacted other Ostranders on their travels, especially in summers when they returned to New York from their home in Arizona. A small local reunion in Ithaca, New York, in 1979 led to others in 1980 and 1982. The Ostrander Family Association was founded in 1984 at an international family reunion in Kingston, New York, which drew Ostrander descendants from a number of states and Canada.
In addition to Vinton, the founding members who organized the reunion were Chester Ostrander, Peter H. Ostrander, Lynn Ostrander and Phyllis Feeney. Vinton drafted the Association’s constitution and by-laws and wrote guidelines establishing the duties of board officers. He was the Association’s first Ostrander Family Genealogist and the first editor of the family newsletter.
In its issue of March 21, 1983, Time magazine singled out Vinton Ostrander as one of the early users of the computer in genealogical research.
After graduation from high school in Ithaca, New York, Vinton studied business administration at the University of Buffalo. He worked at private companies in Buffalo and Ithaca for a time and continued his active interest in the Boy Scouts of America, which he had joined at age 15 in Ithaca.
In 1934, married and with one son, Vinton was selected for enrollment in the National Training School for Scout Executives. His planning and organizing abilities suited him well for a long career in scouting at the executive level and he felt personally rewarded in being able to bring the high principals for the Boy Scouts of America to the youth of our country. He retired in 1971 in Buffalo, New York, where he spent the last 20 years of his service in professional Scouting.
In 1930, Vinton had married Pauline Carolyn Fahr in Buffalo and in 1932 their son, Vinton, Jr. was born. Vinton and Pauline made their retirement home in Peoria, Arizona. After Pauline died in 1976, Vinton devoted himself to serious research on his Ostrander antecedents. Driving a travel trailer, he frequently called Ostranders listed in telephone directories of cities where he stopped for the night. His research journey took him to genealogical collections in serval cities, including Washington, D. C. and Albany, New York.
In his boyhood home of Ithaca, Vinton completed his lineage back to Pieter Pieterzen. There, he met his high school girl friend, Ruth Van Marter, whose husband had passed away. Vinton and Ruth were married November 19, 1977 in Ithaca with his son as best man. In Sun City, Vinton continued his long record of volunteer service to church and community.
In his last years, looking back at his busy life of service to society, Vinton said he was “proudest of being recognized as the OFA Founder”.
Lynn Ostrander
LYNN H. OSTRANDER-
US. Army Air force (OFA# 12, BBid 5000, Willem3)
Lynn (OFA #12, BB 5000) was on the original committee that organized the Ostrander Family Association.
He has served as an Area Vice President, membership chair and longtime Big Book coordinator and editor of the OFA newsletter from 1990-1998. If that wasn’t enough he served as President 1994-1996. We can’t forget that Trudie served as President 2002-2004, and Journal Editor from 1992 to 2000. Until 2021, they were the only couple to both serve as OFA president.
During WWII Lynn’s combat experience was a short one but not in a good way. Lynn was in the Army Air Force. He was drafted into the Army Air Corps and was a member of the 99th Bomb Group, 346th Squadron. He was a waist gunner on a B-17, the Swamp Gal. His first mission was flown out of Tortorella Air Field in Italy for a bombing run over Czechoslovakia.
The first bombing run was Christmas Day, December 25 1944. Unfortunately, Lynn’s B-17 was shot down and he was taken Prisoner of War (POW) for 101 days. Lynn was 21 years old.
B-17 The Swamp Gal
Lynn Ostrander also recounts the incident in the following memoirs about that combat flight and his World War II experiences.
“Our plane was hit while on the bombing run, but I think we held course until our bombs were dropped. One engine and our hydraulic system had been knocked out. We knew we couldn’t go back to base, so a decision was made to head for friendly (Russian) territory”. “One of our fighters flew up beside us and motioned to our pilot to follow him and head for home base. But our pilot knew that we couldn’t make it to the base in Italy. So the escort pilot waved and peeled off, heading back to the base in Italy.”
Ostrander’s plane was shot down by the German Luftwaffe, killing the pilot and co-pilot, but the crew was able to parachute to safety.
“When I picked myself up (after bailing out of the plane) I could see a column of smoke from where our plane had already gone down”.
Lynn and other members of the crew were captured, taken to a nearby town and interrogated briefly by the SS. Lynn, who had a shrapnel wound in his right ankle, was taken to a hospital in Felbring, Austria where he underwent surgery for his ankle injury.
He also was fitted with a cast because of an injury to his right knee and given crutches before being moved to a distant POW camp. Lynn was a POW for 101 days, until he was liberated by General George Patton’s troops almost 5 months later in April 1945.
When Lynn was 26, he married Trudie Jordan on 30 July 1949. Soon after he quit his job at the Pittsburgh Corning glass factory in Port Allegany after nearly four years and started seven years of school. He studied history for four years at Houghton (N.Y.) College under the GI bill. With his wife and two young sons in tow, he then attended the Evangelical United Brethren seminary in Portland, Oregon for three years. He went to classes during the day and worked at night as a custodian. Trudie worked in the dining hall of the seminary to help make ends meet. After he was ordained in 1956, Lynn was appointed to serve at several churches in McKean County before he served at Hill Memorial United Methodist Church in Bradford in 1981. Lynn then served as a pastor for almost 32 years.
Lynn and Trudie Ostrander
If this wasn’t enough Trudie and Lynn celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in 2019. While this small bio on Lynn started out on the harrowing note of being shot down, not enough can be said about his and Trudie’s dedication to each other and in support of the OFA.
To these three Ostranders, Paul, Doug and Lynn, and ALL other Ostranders who served, we owe them our gratitude and thanks for their service and sacrifices in support of our country in WWII. I’ve had the pleasure to know all three and wish the best to Paul and Lynn for the
coming years.