A former Auburn history professor, David Lewis loved aviation.
His research notes on World War I airplane ace Eddie Rickenbacker recently flew into the library's special collections and archives.
Lewis used these notes to write the biography "Eddie Rickenbacker: an American hero in the twentieth century," which also resides in special collections.
"No one had written a biography about him, although he was a World War I hero," said Pat Lewis, David's wife.
Rickenbacker was coined the "Ace of Aces."
Dwayne Cox, head of special collections and archives, said he shot down more planes than anyone else.
"He was a daredevil," Cox said. "After the war, he founded Eastern Airlines. He was in on the early days of commercial aviation."
Pat said Lewis' interest in Rickenbacker came from his love of aviation.
"That brought my husband his interest and unflagging research, thrills, interest and enthusiasm."
David originally wrote only a short article about Rickenbacker for a book, but then decided to turn it into a full biography.
Pat said collecting information for Rickenbacker's biography became David's passion.
She assisted him for 15 years while they traveled in search of Rickenbacker's relatives and collected research.
"We would go to France and stand on the battlefields where he used to fight on to get a real sense of the person," Pat said.
Pat said David was quite the investor and was the last person to interview Rickenbacker's son, Bill Rickenbacker, before he died.
"He spent a great deal of time with him and got a lot of information about Eddie that he couldn't have gotten anywhere else, but from his son," Pat said.
In addition to having his research notes added to special collections, David helped bring rare books and other materials about Rickenbacker to the library.
"David deeply appreciated everything we did to build up the history of flight collection," Cox said. "He reciprocated. He helped us identify things. He even used some of his own money to collect things for the Rickenbacker collection."
David was able to collect Rickenbacker's letters, photographs and a diary to be added to the archives.
"He was working on the biography, so it helped for him to have the materials here," Pat said. "He also wanted to have the material here because they were rich in World War I material, and they would be available to future students working on degrees to have possible topics and categories to work on."
Pat said David loved Auburn.
David came to Auburn after working in Buffalo, N.Y., where Pat said he was dealing with student riots.
"He thought this Southern town was the best that there was, and the friendliness of the people here at Auburn University and the camaraderie was the best he had ever seen," she said.
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