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Walter's father purchased a grain elevator near Ft. Dodge, Iowa and the family moved to Iowa to operate the business. Shortly after arrival Walter became acquainted with a Curtiss distributor at the Ft. Dodge airport. This led to his having approximately two hours instruction in a "Jenny" and its Canadian version, the "Canuck", to become familiar with stick control instead of the shoulder yoke system. It also led to several ferry flights to air meets at other fields opened by Curtiss Iowa Aircraft. In the spring of 1921, Addems purchased a Thomas-Horse S4C. He flew the T.M. to Illinois and, through the help of an older man he received a contract to put on a daily exhibition of stunt flying at the Kankakee County Fair.

The following year he left his father's grain business to form a partnership with the man who had owned the Curtiss Pusher. They started a small flying service, selling rides, doing advertising for an oil company giving flight instruction, and Addems continued exhibition flying. During this period they owned a curtiss JN4-D, a Standard J-I, a Standard E-1 Scout, the Thomas-Morse and an Ansaldo Cabin biplane powered by a 300 h.p. Fiat.

In the winter of 1924, he took a job at Toledo, Ohio helping rebuild, test-fly and deliver Avro 504K airplanes. These were the last of the Avro's which had been imported by Interallied Aircraft of N. Y., shortly after the war had ended.

In the spring of 1925 he returned to Illinois to fly for Yackey Aircraft at Maywood's Checkerboard Field. Following announcement of the "First Ford Reliability Tour," he participated in the installation of four upper-wing panels on a two place OX5 engine Thomas Morse. This added wing area to improve the "stick and unstick" performance which was one of the factors in judging the contest. The work was accomplished in record