George Albert: Syrian refugee family to American Hero
George Albert is the main character in Hang on and Fly. He was born in 1921 in the United States to Syrian immigrants who came to America during a wave of Ottoman Turk migration between 1905 and 1907. His parents fled the Syrian Arab Republic much the same as Syrians were fleeing their war-torn country in 2015.
George Albert, crash survivor.
Explaining to a reporter how he survived the plane crash and walked off the mountain for help.
By all accounts, the Alberts were hard-working retail merchants in Western Pennsylvania. Although the marriage of George's parents didn't last, the Syrian-American Albert family grew and spread through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Florida by 1951. In the family photo provided by Dee Albert, George is on the left and his mother is in the middle, just days before the crash.
In the photo on the right, George is being examined by the same doctor who was treating Ruby Bryant for breast cancer.
In Hang on and Fly, I describe how George Albert became an American hero and a celebrity after the plane crash of December 29, 1951. "If not for George Albert, I don't know how I would have survived...," said one crash survivor. After trudging through deep snow down the mountain from the airplane crash scene, when George arrived at Ruby Bryant’s farmhouse, his only concern was to find help for the other survivors.
Read about him in Hang on and Fly. Chapter 4 is titled George Albert.