My Father’s Father A. Ray Lambert
Being the son of a famous rich man is not an easy path in life, but my grandfather Ray, John Lambert’s only son, followed the family tradition of entrepreneurship. He was a firsthand participant to the birth and early development of the American automotive industry. He was a toddler when he rode in America’s first car, and then watched his family prosper manufacturing automobiles through his teen years. He went to Ohio State and Depauw University in Indiana where he had the first car on campus – a sporty red turtleback model built by his father. As a young man Ray sold Lambert cars across the country, securing agents to represent the Lambert company and organizing and attending events to showcase and sell cars.
When Ray was 19 years old, he interrupted his college program to travel to Detroit to investigate the possibility of joining Henry Ford in his latest scheme. Ford had approached John Lambert about financial backing that would help build a plant for his moving assembly line. John sent his son to the meeting with the offer to back him, Ray, if he decided to throw in with Henry Ford. Ray came home disgusted with Ford as a person, and said, “It would never have worked. We would have been in a fist fight the first day.” Although Ray did not join Henry Ford, John got Ford in touch with a Detroit business man who did invest and became part of the original Board for Ford’s company. That man cashed out in the 1950’s for tens of millions of dollars but I can assure you neither father nor son ever regretted his decision. Like Ford, they had the “I’ll work for myself” gene. I have it, too.
Ray pursued a Big Idea to California where he hoped to open a tractor manufacturing plant. His dad developed the continuous wheelpad to help farmers pick oranges. That idea of Ray’s went bust, but my dad was born in Berkeley CA at this time. Ray then went to work for Howard Hughes’ father selling airplane parts and eventually he settled with his Farmland, Indiana wife in Dayton, Ohio where he started several businesses losing all but the last, a company my dad joined and later took over. Ray and Dorothy raised their two children in Dayton and I went to the same high school that my dad attended.
Ray Lambert died relatively young at 67 after years of bedridden illness. He only outlived his dad by a couple of years.
