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Eiffel Plasterer
(1899-1989)
Eiffel Gray Plasterer was born September 23, 1899, in Huntington County,
the sixth child of William Leonidas and Elizabeth Rebecca Dill Plasterer.
Eiffel's great grandparents and grandparents came from Shipensburg, Pennsylvania
in 1837 via Richland, Ohio and in 1853 to Union Township.
Special childhood memories included harvest time when the old steam
traction engine pulling a threshing machine would come to the farms and
all the family neighbors would gather to help. Eiffel loved going in town
to church and remembered the revival meeting when he was nine, when he
committed his life to being on God's side. The Chautauqua were special
and exciting to him; he especially loved the magicians and the bands. He
told of seeing and hearing Helen Keller and of shaking hands with Booker
T. Washington. He wanted to be a preacher, magician and thresherman all
at one time.
He attended one-room schools for the elementary grades, graduated from
Huntington High School in 1919 and from DePauw University in 1924, majoring
in religion and physics, with graduate work at Manchester College and Indiana
University.
He taught physics and mathematics at Huntington Township High School
for four years, and chemistry and physics at Huntington High School for
21 years and served as a critic teacher for Huntington College science
students.
He married Inez Marie Burgett on July 8, 1925 and they became the parents
of Alice Marie and William Eiffel.
It was while a student at DePauw that his physics professor used soap
films to show sound vibrations. This spark of interest in soap films was
followed by several years of research to produce a solution for his demonstrations.
In 1932, he gave the first bubble show for fellow teachers and eight years
later he took "Bubbles Concerto" on the road of Chautauqua and
for schools, service clubs, convention banquets, and church vespers services.
He retired from teaching in 1949 to continue researching the premise,
"Bubbles will last if they do not break," to farm the family
farm and to collect his first love - steam engines.
Eiffel used soap bubbles in the classroom and on stage to prove that
hydrogen burns, mixed with oxygen will explode and that there is lifter
in hot air, how light is reflected, how surface tension works and how various
shapes are formed by soap films. He gave a bubble show on the "Hobby
Lobby" radio program, perfected several inventions, held patent letters
and wrote numerous scientific articles like: "Soap Bubbles in the
School" and "Long Life Soap Bubbles." 
He was a musician, playing bass horn and sousaphone in local orchestras
and bands, and a 60-year member of the Erie Band. His first TV appearance
was on "You Asked For It," with Art Baker. In the 1980's, he
was featured on Real People, The Tomorrow Show, Late Night with David Letterman,
and the Dick Cavett Show.
He was featured bubbleologist at the San Francisco Exploratorium Bubble
Festivals, and at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. In May of 1982,
the Huntington Exchange Clubs awarded Eiffel the clubs' Book of Golden
Deeds.
Eiffel loved the land and farmed organically and continued to raise
and process sorghum cane molasses annually.
In 1985, a Chicago Tribune reporter wrote, "Eiffel Plasterer doesn't
just blow beautiful bubbles with soap, he does it with life itself. He
is national treasure." C.T. 12/3/85.
The next spring, billboards bearing his likeness mysteriously appeared
around Huntington, proclaiming him "Huntington's National Treasure."
The street through Hier's Park was named Plasterer Lane in his honor.
His final bubble performance (the 1,501st recorded show) was given June
15, 1989; the evening he received the third annual Union Church Christian
Heritage Award. Eiffel died June 27, 1989, and was buried in Union Cemetery.
"Life is like blowing of bubbles, our hopes and dreams are the
bubbles of life we are blowing; they do not all have to break." "A
bubble is how a child's breath can make something beautiful from nothing
- just like God made the universe."
"You never grow too old to blow bubbles."
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