Barbara Ferret & Lorraine - Stans Sister and Niece Speak 2019 - Max Miller - Bremen, OH
Stan Meyer's Sister and Niece Speak
Speakers: Barbara Ferret (Stan's sister, 10 years older) & Lorraine (Stan's niece)
Event: Max Miller's Conference, Bremen, OH
Source: Video transcription (AI-assisted)
YouTube ID: eQNf-g61ViI
The Speakers
Barbara Ferret: I'm Stan's sister. I'm 10 years older than the boys. I'm 84.
Lorraine: I'm Barbara's daughter. I'm his niece, Stan's niece. The one thing you all need to know is most of us in his family probably didn't believe a lot of stuff that he did. We would always, maybe during a holiday or something like that, then hear all these stories and look at each other and go, do you believe him?
Family Background
The boys and I had different fathers. My father died when I was two years old. So Henry Meyer was our dad. And he treated me exactly like a daughter. He was a really good dad.
The boys were born in August of 1940. They were identical twins. I could tell them apart when they were younger. As they grew older, there was a big difference. Dad was fooled by them many times — he simply called them "boys" all the time because he couldn't remember who was who.
We grew up on the east side of Columbus on Eastwood Avenue, near Franklin Park.
The Bicycle Story
They were 16 when they got their first bicycles. Rather than just give them a bicycle, their father took them apart — the spokes out of the tires, the rims, the rubber off the rims. Everything, every little bit. And it was just a pile on the ground. And he said, "here, boys, here's your bikes. Put them together."
And they did. That's the way dad was with things. He wanted them to constantly learn.
Early Entrepreneurship
One time they went fishing and in the dirt they found a purse with some money in it, but it was molded and glued together. So they took it to a bank and the bank gave the boys good money for the moldy money they found. With the money they bought a lawnmower and went into business cutting people's lawns. They were probably ten years old.
Naming the Twins
Barbara: I named them. Mother asked me to. I named Stephen after Stephen Foster, who was my favorite writer. And Stanley — Stanley Allen — from Edgar Allen Poe. I thought Stephen and Stan just sounded like twins. And she didn't care. I mean she absolutely didn't care.
The Twin Dynamic
Strengths and Trading Off
Stan was good at all English matters. He could take a paper and tear it apart and rewrite it, and Steve couldn't do that for anything. Steve's was math, and that's where his strength was. So they traded off with one another. Their grades were reflective in that.
And yes, they did the fooling the teachers, trading off. One was good in math and one was good in English. And so they did each other's homework.
Personalities
Lorraine: Stan definitely had the bigger personality. Stan was definitely the dreamer. Steve was definitely the worrier, and Stan was like, "yeah, it'll happen, we can do it." Steve is the one that was right there just trying to show him if they could do it.
Stan was the PR guy. Steve was the mechanic.
Steve and the TVs
Lorraine: We took a console TV to Uncle Steve forever, for like 20 years. And he would always fix them. He was tinkering with TVs and doing everything down in the basement.
Military Service
We were all in the military. I went in the Army and the boys went in the Air Force.
Barbara was in cryptography, stationed at the Pentagon, ciphering code involving Churchill and Stalin.
Lorraine: She talks like it's no big deal. Like, "Mom!"
Battelle and the ATM
Barbara: What I remember is that Stan had a lot to do with the ATM, and I believe I was told that he developed the ATM, but because he worked for Battelle, it was their idea, not his.
The Dune Buggy
When and Where
Barbara: We were living on the east side of Columbus. My recollection was the 70s sometime, probably 71 or 72. He had a place — he ran a garage from a Dr. Hensroth on Broadway in Grove City. Dr. Hensroth didn't use his garage, so he rented it out to Stan.
Barbara Sat in the Running Buggy
Lorraine: She got to sit in it. That was about 95 or 96.
Barbara: He would not take me around. I just sat in it. He turned the ignition on and — he had some issues, but I would say within 10 to 15 seconds it started. It was on for at least a good two minutes.
I remember thinking it wasn't like a regular motor. It just was a click and something wasn't there. He actually went and shook something and then it started.
The Tap Water
Lorraine: The other thing that he did was take that tube right over to the tap water and fill it up and actually pour it right in there. That was very easily done because the car was right in the garage.
Current Location of the Buggy
Stephen Greer claims that he had purchased it and they wouldn't let him have it. According to rumor, he didn't come up with the money. It sold to Quad City Innovations and they are the current owners. They cannot turn it on. It's never been turned on since they've owned it.
Max: I had multiple conversations with them on the phone. It's never been turned on. And they won't give me access to it.
The Grove City Laboratory
Lorraine: At the end, he had the back of a house on Broadway in Grove City. There was an upstairs and then the garage and a little office area in the bottom. That was his laboratory — where he kept the car and his tubes and all the monitors.
In 95 Mom retired from her job and he asked her to do some secretarial work. Stan used a Macintosh because he did a lot of graphics, and you couldn't do that on IBM at the time.
Stan's Later Years: Paranoia
Barbara: He became almost paranoid in the end. He thought that what he had discovered with the water fuel cell — that people were out to get him.
Lorraine: He was reclusive. He was off by himself a lot. Except Steve — Steve is the one that was around him most of his life. When we found out about this conference, we would not be here if it weren't for Matt and me hooking up online. That's when I realized I wanted to learn from everybody here about my uncle.
The Offers
Lorraine: He would say that NASA offered him about four million dollars. The one thing he never wanted to do was just have someone sit on it. He would say, "I'm not going to sell out. I'm going to trust in the Lord and this is what I need to be doing." He really truly believed he was put on this earth to do this.
And I don't think any of us took him seriously.
The Funeral
Lorraine: I remember turning to her after his funeral and said, "you know what, this is like a Danielle Steele novel. You need to be writing this down." There was a lot of people there and most people we had never known before.
I was talking to someone and he said something to me that really hit: "You know, they can take us out right now and it'll all be gone." And I'm thinking, OK, wait a minute, we're in Ohio here. What are you talking about? And so I found at that point my radar just kind of went up.
Stan's Marriages and Children
Lorraine: Stan was married twice, but we never knew the second wife. Nobody in the family knew the second wife at all. They didn't live together — Stan lived in Grove City and she lived in Bexley.
Stan married a Jewish woman first — Donna. There are three children total: two with Aunt Donna, and one — a daughter named Melissa — from before the first marriage.
The Family's Grandmother
Lorraine: My grandmother was the first female broker in Columbus. She had her broker's license all the way up until she died. She was back in the day when they weren't giving loans to women. She figured out her way.
Barbara: She was a wonderful lady. My grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness.
Steve Meyer
Lorraine: If Steve was here today, he could talk the whole day. If he wants to come tomorrow, he could talk the whole day tomorrow. He is fascinating. That's my goal — to see if I can get him to come.
Steve has been working on retina scanning.
[To Steve, if watching]: Steve, if you're watching, answer that question. We have millions of questions. We just don't want to be rude to you. I'll buy him a ticket.