First Female Licensed Pilot in Howard County Iowa

[ovrszd]

This past week I had the honor of attending the funeral of my Aunt Charline. She was 94. Born 8th of 13 children into a poor Missouri farm family. In 1941 she was persuaded to come to Iowa by two of her Brothers, my Dad and his Brother Ray.

She needed to figure out a way to make a living so she got a mail order course in Radio Repair. She became a licensed Radio Repair person and opened a small shop in Saratoga Iowa. She was 19.

 

[ovrszd]

After awhile she realized this was too confining. Being inside every day. No excitement.

In a town nearby there was a man that had a grass runway at his farm. He gave flying lessons. She went to visit. She got a job working at his little airport and began taking flying lessons from him.

She wrote an account of this time. I took a pic of her hand written notes concerning this time. For some reason I can't get them to post correctly, they are always turned sideways. So I'm going to retype her words. Sorry for the disconnect.



March 1941 came to Iowa. After a short time started working in Kakor store in Saratogea I got a radio technician license and opened a Radio repair shop in a section of the store. 4 years. Kept very busy. My job kept me real confined, inside work.

I had dreamed of learning to fly for some time. Getting more interested I began taking flying lessons at Henry Airport near Floyd Iowa. After solo I soon got my private license and was employed at CC Airport. After many more hours of flying I received my Commercial license and did Charter trips for long distance flights.

After Airshows became very popular I flew to Des Moines and took an inspection for a flight for low flyers permit, after this Airshows.

I flew in every show when scheduled, Holidays and Weekends. That's where the money was. Not wanting to feel so responsible for the other person's airplane, I purchased a little yellow Piper Cub and did the acrobatics flying cross country. I would land in a hay field and give rides if the workers flagged me to land. That's where the money was.

After owning the plane for 2 years I decided to get married to a nice farm boy who lived close to the airport. We farmed close by for 2 years. Then we were needing to move, this farm was sold. The landlord was nice but didn't think he was covered by insurance for the airplane. Farms were hard to find. So we sold the airplane. Merrill (husband) missed it more than I did. He had 40 hours of flight time. Due to expanding our Turkey raising and milking cows we really made more money and very busy. Really was a good decision. Our play days were almost over.



Here's a pic of her hand written notes.

 

[ovrszd]

Aunt Charline's specialty during the Air Shows was Loop the Loops. He teacher would ride with her while learning so she would get used to his weight in the plane. Then when she was ready to do it solo it was much easier because she didn't have his weight. He taught her to come out of her loops 50ft off the ground. She didn't think that was exciting enough so she lowered to 20ft.

As the shows went on they were always looking for something new. Well,,,, Aunt Charline was always looking for something new. She decided one day that she would try wing walking. Here's her account of that adventure. Again, I'll type her notes and then post them.



A quiet 6 p.m. in July of 1948.

With a few people standing around visiting they saw me climbing on top of the airplane PT19 (her trainer's plane), open cockpit low single wing plane. Then they watch the PT19 takeoff. That day I became a wing walker for a short flight. The people watching thought I would parachute jump. No way!!! I didn't even have a parachute on.

After a short ride, came back and landed. I was asked how did you like wing walking? "Oh fine, pretty exciting, I forgot my parachute." After a few day I decided I didn't want to parachute off. Pilot decided not a good idea to fly back and land with rider on top of plane in case of a bad landing or flip over. To really tell the truth it wasn't as big a thrill as I'd dreamed of. Pretty breezy ride. A real breath taker.

If I'd decide to parachute from plane the pilot would have rolled the plane over and flew upside down. The wing walker would releas belt and fall free. Parachute down and hope for a happy landing.

I just didn't like the idea after thinking it over on second ride.



Here's her notes.

 

[ovrszd]

Here's some pics the family has of her adventures. Again, I apologize for the turned pics.

 

[ovrszd]

Here are some pics of my favorite Aunt.


She's the lady on the right.

 

[ovrszd]

Here's a pic from her Obituary. What a lady. Soft spoken, polite, considerate, down played any mention of her young life adventures.

 

[Citydude]

Thanks for posting Richard. It's always interesting to look at that time in history. She sounds like she was a free spirit. My uncle had a piper cub. He was a bombardier in WW2 and when he came back from the war, he ended up on his fathers ranch who immigrated from Russia. I still remember the canvas skin on the cub. It was yellow was well.

 

[ovrszd]

Thanks for posting Richard. It's always interesting to look at that time in history. She sounds like she was a free spirit. My uncle had a piper cub. He was a bombardier in WW2 and when he came back from the war, he ended up on his fathers ranch who immigrated from Russia. I still remember the canvas skin on the cub. It was yellow was well.

As a kid I thought she was a God!!!!!

 

[murphy1244]

We had air races back in the 40s and 50s in Brook park Ohio till a plane crashed in Berea and took out a whole family.

Cleveland National Air Race 1949, Probably The Bill Odum P51C Crash & Burn - YouTube

 

[ovrszd]

We had air races back in the 40s and 50s in Brook park Ohio till a plane crashed in Berea and took out a whole family.

Yep. I'm sure there were no restrictions on the crowds in her time.

My Cousin has a picture of one of here show crew crashing but I didn't get a pic of it. Propeller broke off and tore the right wing off. Plane is heading straight down, 100ft or so off the ground. Someone had wrote on it "last few seconds of a life".