The House of Cheltenham

The House of Cheltenham is a fictional story showing how technology can lead us where we should not go. The story begins with author Mike having writer's block. His literary agent is pressuring him to finish his next book. Mike, along with his wife, Pam, decide to move from the big city to an old country house in eastern Indiana. There Mike hopes to find inspiration to continue his writing. Little did they know that many years earlier it served as a research laboratory for a doctor dying from cancer. They were totally unaware of the secret laboratory hidden below the house. Fifty years earlier Dr. Cheltenham was determined to find a way to continue his life. He invented a way to preserve his body and mind in a state of animation hoping for a cure in the future. Things get complicated when it becomes necessary for him to temporarily borrow a younger man's body in order to survive. Our story spans more than 100 years from the time the doctor starts his experiments. Soon the world is clamoring for Dr. Cheltenham's life-prolonging procedures. It seems there is no more reason for anyone to die, ever. But, at what cost.

David Edsall was born October 1939. In his younger days, he enjoyed flying airplanes, boating, snow skiing, scuba diving and working at his various businesses. Edsall received his pilot's license in 1965. In 1983, he built a second residence along the Cumberland River, 275 miles from his home in Indianapolis. From there he took many river- trip adventures by boats he owned. His fi rst attempt at retiring was in 1995 at the age of fifty-five. He and his wife bought a 50-foot motor yacht in Detroit, Michigan. Departing in early spring, they travelled through the Great Lakes, the Erie Canal, through Canada on the St. Lawrence Seaway, back down into the US, down the length of Lake Michigan and through the city of Chicago, continuing down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and then across the Gulf of Mexico to end up in their new boat retirement home in Fort Myers, Florida. They arrived in late November of that year. Boredom caught up with Edsall in 1998, and he started a family business with his son, Steven. He is still active in that business at the age of 84.