Category / flight

by Mary James

XII. A Brother in Awe, Olympics, Barometers, Sendoffs

A few more things before the next chapter (which I keep saying, but then I find more things).

A Brother in Awe

While all the booze cruising and high flying was going on, Helen received a letter from her soon to be brother-in-law, Walter J. McLaren, a 31-year-old banker from Brooklyn (specifically, we think, Bedford Stuyvesant). Walt is about to marry Helen’s baby sister, Mary (my grandmother and namesake), who was 24 and had recently graduated from Skidmore College with a degree in Home Economics. Helen, like Walter, was 31.

Here are the best bits of the letter (with some commentary):

Dear Helen, 

I received your letter to Mary today and write to accept my appointment as junior postmaster for the Skinners. Your handwriting on the envelope made me feel quite guilty so I hastened to make amends with my future sister-in-law by acknowledging with thanks your Christmas card and your welcome into the family.

Side note: Always good to start humble, with an ‘at your service’ vibe, all the while flattering (he offers to work for them and compliments her handwriting, which is, though tiny, impeccable). 

It gave me a new thrill when I realized that in addition to having a lovely wife I am going to have a sister too. I have always wanted one and I look forward to really knowing you. Mary has told me a lot about you so that I feel that my new sister is not entirely a stranger but I must admit I stand in awe of your many accomplishments. I hope you will like me and feel entirely at ease and comfortable in our home. We hope to make it a place where you can breathe freely even though your breath should be scented with the enticing musty aroma of beer.

Side note: Her CV was quite remarkable already in 1935, so he’s correct to be in awe. ‘I hope you will like me…’ is about the cutest thing ever, considering they are peers. The home Walter and Mary would make was a cozy one in New Jersey, with their soon to be children — eventually three, including my mother. And if banking didn’t work out for Walt, based on that last sentence about beer, he coulda written copy for the ad business a la Don Draper. 

If my writing isn’t legible or coherent, blame it on the pen which occasionally imagines itself a syringe and discharges its ink with a startling effect. Personally I think it’s ashamed of me and belches with embarrassment.

Side note: If he wrote ads for the pen industry, he coulda easily taken down a competitor.

Now that I have done the polite thing of introducing myself in somewhat stilted style, of making my apologies, of giving my thanks and explaining my eccentric manner of writing, I am free to devote the rest of this letter to my one subject, Mary.

Side note: SO CUTE! 

As I think you realized I have been in the past no better than I should have been and posed as a professional cynic. I suppose that judged by strictly Presbyterian standards I am condemned to burn in the everlasting fires of Hell but instead it seems that I am to be warmed by happiness of a true perfect love. I shall always be grateful to Mary for teaching me a new way to view life and a promise of a beautiful future.

Side note: I’m not sure what that first part means. That he was on the wrong track until he met Mary? Not sure, but before seeing this letter, I’d only known my grandparents through pictures and tales of a quiet family home, with the three quiet children and a beloved cocker spaniel, CoCo. That Walt was so emotive about his bride-to-be is excellently sweet. ‘A true perfect love…’. It just makes me want to squeeze them all. And we don’t often squeeze. 

I am writing to you of these things as I feel that you will want to know and I am sure that you will understand. I also realize that if the ravings of a love blinded boy bore you a perfect defense is open to you. I don’t usually warn my victims but I feel friendly toward you. I wish you could have seen Mary at Christmas you could then understand me. Mary radiates a halo of joy and love that causes people to look at her with a soft light in their eyes. Do you believe I love her?

Side note: I do! I do! He’s so gushy, but without hyperbole, I think. He just seems straight up smitten.

I do a great deal of thinking about what our life together is going to be. I want Mary to have a full life and her own life. I do not intend to imprison her with rules and restrictions and I am afraid that I shall resent outside interference with her choice of living. You no doubt can advise me about this point as my Mary is a poor diplomat I have found. That trait seems to be characteristic of the Scotch. I think I had better close this letter and reserve something for the future. I want to repeat my invitation to make our home your home and our garage your garage.  With hope for a genuine understanding, I am. 

Your brother, 

Walter
Walter McLaren (Helen’s soon to be brother-in-law) introduces himself in a doting letter, 1935

Too sweet. And bitter sweet. From what I know, they lived a happy life, raising the three children in Essex Fells, New Jersey. Walter was the Vice President of a local bank. Mary was a homemaker. I unfortunately never met her, as she passed away of heart disease at a far too young 58, and I had yet to come along. I was however named after her, including her middle name, Elizabeth). Walter I met once, if you call an adult meeting a two year old ‘meeting’. Evidence below.

What’s been told of them is that they — like the rest of us — were not timid or shy necessarily, but words were not wasted. But then in the Booze Cruise post, Helen is a social butterfly and this letter, my grandfather is being silly and emotive. So everything is topsy turvy. But in the best ways. We all have our moments.

I’m getting off track, as this is not about Helen, but you will see soon how I circle back.

Some visuals of Mary and Walter and fam to go along with all this:

The first picture, of the child in the white hat, fancy coat, and boots, is Walter. Hehe.

Then they grow up, meet, have kiddos, and then, in one of my favorite photos of all time, likely taken in the 1950s, they appear to be opening presents on Christmas morning (they look so perfectly disheveled in such a 1950s way). And then finally you see Walter with his daughter, Jean Elizabeth, and her daughter, Mary (i.e. me, dressed in my boy cousin hand-me-downs). That was taken by my father in his photography studio in Duncan, British Columbia, Canada, in 1973ish.

Sadly, Walt passed away in the days after the photo above was taken. He was 74. as was Helen.

I was his fourth grandchild, the first girl, and named after his Mary. He got to see all of his children grow up and marry, even the wayward one (pictured above, with me). And got to help welcome four grandchildren into the world, and knew there was a fifth on the way.

I know those last few paragraphs were not about Helen, but it was Mary who told my mother, Jean (her second, artsy, restless child, who had just dropped out of her 4th art school) to get out of her hair and go visit her Aunt Helen in Canada. My mother did, and she stayed for 15 years, in the process enrolling in and dropping out of another art school (I relay this story directly from her, and I should note that she is very proud of her wayward-ness). During this time I came along. And now I’m writing this. So it all ties in.

Though I don’t have pictures of Helen and Mary together aside from when they were children, I found this from a letter Helen wrote in the 1980s about their relationship:

"Mary and I scarcely knew each other when we were growing up. I was away at school, or away teaching (U of Cincinnati, U of Kentucky, Smith College, U of Minnesota, Purdue, Gulf Park College (a junior college in Gulfport Miss). But from 1946 we saw each other more often. She and Walter came to Vanc and we went east and we became devoted to each other. She and Walter were very active in community affairs and were much revered and admired. In 1961 M had an open heart operation and she felt after that she was living on borrowed time. But she had eight good years after that and never stopped her activities."

Helen would outlive her baby sister by over 30 years.

My mother, by the way, is happy, healthy, and still artsy (she didn’t need that degree to be an artist) and living in coastal Oregon. She just told me that when she was little, Helen babysat for them, and put them all in the tub and showed them how to wash their belly buttons. Aww.

Cheers to family! Oh, and family… I invite you to guest blog on here! Send me stories and such (or else!).

III Olympics

And now a few final items I found from her teaching era, before we set sail around the world. I have framed on my wall two tickets to the 1932 Winter Olympics, in Lake Placid, New York. These were the III Olympic Winter Games, and they were the first Olympics held in the United States. The competing countries, not surprisingly, were mostly in North America and Europe. In attendance there were 17 nations, with a total of 252 athletes (21 of them women). Curling was played even! How very Upper North American.

Though the world was still suffering from a global depression, attendance was low and the games were almost cancelled, the show went on.

The top ticket (at double the price of the second one) was likely for the closing ceremonies. How fun.

Helen studied, lived, and loved athletics and I hope she enjoyed the games as much, if not more, than the did the Jai Alai game she attended in Havana a few years later.

Barometer Reader

Another item in my possession is a cool looking barometer. It resides next to our front door, and is always set as it appears below: Rain with a chance of Changeable. The mechanics inside the thing do not move on their own, but I haven’t fiddled with it to know if they might (not that me fiddling with it would help, but perhaps one of the many engineers in the family could help — and if they’re reading this then the pressure is on!).

There are two ‘hands’ to the barometer. The gold one moves around manually via the knob in the middle. The blue one is controlled internally (or would be if it worked). And what I probably once learned but had forgotten is that barometers measure atmospheric pressure, and that’s what they were used for in aviation. The webs explain it better than I can.

The little blue plane on top seems an add on. The back is engraved: Helen Skinner, Gulf Park A.A., 1933. Perhaps this was a gift after she got her pilot’s license.

May your days be forever Fair, my friends!

A Long Goodbye

The card below reads: “Dear Miss Skinner, may every hour of your trip give you joy and the fulfillment of your most roseate dreams. You deserve every cherished blessing and every supreme happiness. All of us here at Gulf Park love, admire and appreciate you. Sincerely, Elizabeth Maddox Cox.”

Roseate is a word I either forgot (most likely) or never knew. But it is my new favorite word. A nice sentiment, but Helen would certainly not need roseate colored glasses where she was going.

The note above isn’t dated, but we will be assuming that it was written from Gulf Park College to Helen before she left on her freight boat trip around the world. It would mean she was taking time off from teaching, as the trip would last five months. I am not sure if she resigned her position at the school before she left, but if she didn’t, she would right after she returned. The trip truly turned her life on its head, because afterwards, she’d never lived in the U.S. again.

So now, for reals, we’re gonna start the next chapter. Leave your roseate colored glasses behind!

by Mary James

VIII. And Zoom Towards the Moon!

Racing Cars

My mother got me in touch with a couple who knew Helen in Vancouver, B.C., through Shadbolt Cams (a shop that repaired cars, and at some point, if not always, specialized in vintage and race ones). Helen and her husband Roy (who was a race car driver, among other things) had started and run the shop together (that story to come).

I spoke to the couple on the phone, sometime in 2021.

I learned that in 1986, after Helen’s best friend Audrey, who was running the shop at time, passed away in an untimely fashion, the couple took over the business. They said they also took over the tradition of calling Helen every day, as Audrey had done, and visiting frequently, and did so until her death in 1999. I knew that my uncle Bob visited Helen frequently, but he lived on the central coast of California (a 19 hour drive, and he always drove), so hearing she had friends nearby was comforting. They were about my mother’s age (35 years or so younger than Helen). They knew Helen when she was in her 80s and 90s, and they helped fill in some crucial gaps, and also had one story from her younger days that was new to me.

Zig Zagging Different Trails

Helen had told the couple that she’d lived in a dorm once inhabited by Amelia Earhart, but they didn’t have any specific information. I Googled about this. Amelia Earhart, who was six years older than Helen, attended Columbia University in 1919-1920, but didn’t graduate. Helen was first at Columbia in 1920-1924 and then again in 1931. So this dorm business had to have occurred 1921-1924 or in 1931 (the latter being when Earhart was already famous, which makes more sense, as people would have known more about her whereabouts, especially people who flew planes).

This all got me on a research tear, jumping around a bit in time, which this post will reflect. But remember I said there were some weird parallels between Earhart and Helen? One was Columbia and the dorm, another was of course the plane flying, and the third was that they both taught at Purdue, at the same time — Earhart from 1935 to her death in 1937, and Helen in 1936. Helen flew planes at Purdue 29 times in 1936 between June and July. And Amelia was uber famous by then. But there’s no mention of her anywhere, and Helen notes in her timeline quite a bit about people she met and when and where, and Earhart seems noteworthy. It is possible though that they weren’t there at the exact same time — Helen might have just been there for a summer semester and maybe Earhart didn’t stay for the summers. Here is Helen at Purdue in 1936:

This one says “Purdue University, Aerodrome” It was likely 1936.

Rosie Cannot Yet (Officially) Rivet

In my Googling about Columbia in the early 20th Century, I discovered something else new that’s a bit of an aside. My mother told me that Helen wanted to study engineering, but was told she couldn’t. I thought maybe this was because of her family or that she was too young (she was 16 when she started college), and I’d read that women studied medicine then (like Earhart), so I just assumed that engineering would have been accessible. But I was wrong because a woman didn’t graduate from Columbia with a degree in engineering until 1943, around when World War II was stealing away men, and women stepped in to help make stuff. So she truly could not have studied engineering in 1920. She was clearly obsessed with engineering, evident in her barging into engine rooms on boats, asking not only what made them tick, but exactly and precisely how, and then going on to co-own a car shop, where she knew exactly what made them vroom, and could fix them if they didn’t vroom correctly. My mother said Helen used to wear a little camshaft (the cam in Shadbolt Cams means camshaft) pin on her shirt, which I find badass, and I’ve looked all over the Internet for one, but searching for ‘camshaft’ and ‘pin’ (or variations thereof) brings about only greasy car stuff.

In summary, though not studying engineering didn’t stop Helen from ‘engineering’, I still shake a big fist to the powers that be (or were) in 1920.

The couple also said that Helen and Roy used to tow race cars around the U.S. to various events in which he partook, but I have found little information about this. What I do have will live in a future post about Helen once she got to Canada in 1938.

The Need for Loose-leaf Minds

I have two more things to mention about university times — that are tangentially related — before moving on. 1) I forgot that in her timeline, when she’s listing out college information, she mentions “DTA” and Googling said this might be Delta Tau Alpha, though in modern times Delta Tau Alpha is an agricultural society. If anyone knows about these things, I’m all ears. Her notes:

DTA (potentially Delta Tau Alpha) is mentioned on her timeline under information about her undergraduate time at Columbia

2) The other college era artifact I have is a typed essay. It doesn’t say by whom it was written or when, but I am gonna suspect it was her, and based on the content, that it was written when she was a Master’s student (she mentions something Thomas Edison was doing in 1931, and that’s when she was a Master’s student, so I’m gonna make assumptions).

The paper is entitled “The Need for Loose-leaf Minds,” and she uses the three ring binder and its ability to have pages swapped out and re-ordered to argue that we shouldn’t get stuck in the mucky muck and that an open, curious mind is a must have thing. She talks about people who are stubborn to change and even mentions ‘flat earthers’ in the context of those resistant to progress. (She’d likely be none too impressed that these types now have a big ole platform on which to spew their theories.)

The paper goes on to quote Alexander Pope, “Be not the first by whom the new are tried; Nor yet the last to lay the old aside”. This very much tracks, as she wasn’t out trying to break records, but she was, for instance, a woman in 1932 flying planes, and after one of these sessions wrote of her experience: “Moonlight – Jewels sparkling, Thin line of foam to mark the shoreline. A 90 degree turn and zoom toward the moon!” Though she was not the first to zoom this way, it is safe to say that she was far from ‘the last to lay the old aside’.

She started flying lessons a year after she wrote the paper, so she took her own advice and added a new leaf.

The back says, Helen, Purdue, Lafayette.

Next up… yet another leaf! Leaving familiar shores.

by Mary James

III. Flight Log – 1932

Already in the flight folder, I couldn’t help skip ahead. And voila! Thirteen years after the airshow, she’s in Mississippi getting her pilot’s license (at the time she taught Physical Education at Gulfport College, a ‘Junior College for Girls’).

Helen’s Pilot Log Book, 1932-1933
Pages from Helen’s Flight Log while getting her pilot’s license

Her flight notes that accompany the log are at the same time meticulous, self-deprecating, silly, and vivid (all recurring themes in her writing I would find).

This is transcribed from pages that were included in her flight materials, from 1932-1933, as she is learning to fly:

  • Oct 17 – 1st lesson – 1.2hr ER. Short flight in 2 cyl. Aeronca
  • Oct 23 – 2nd lesson – 15 min. First wing-over
  • Nov 7 – 3rd lesson – watched landings. Did 4. Badly. Taxied.
  • Nov 13 – Moonlight – Jewels sparkling, Thin line of foam to mark the shoreline. A 90 degree turn and zoom toward the moon.
  • Nov 14 – 4th lesson – (½) Gorgeous day. Bumpier than any lesson. Much yet to learn, but feel rather better about landings. Made 4 today.
  • Nov 20 – 5th lesson – (½ hr) $7.50 Beautiful day. Big crowd, did turns and steep turns and a couple of stalls and 3 landings with sideslips.
  • Dec – 6th lesson – (½ hr) $7.50 5 landings. Do the same stupid things every time. Will I ever learn to move the stick smoothly to avoid climbing turns, to keep my nose on the horizon, to bring the RPM down to 1350 for straight flying, to cut off the motor soon enough when coming down. The Aeronca on hand again today.
  • Dec 6 – 7th Lesson – (½ hr) WH has bot an ‘Aeronca’ – will guarantee a solo for $75. After my lesson he took me up in it. It practically flies itself. Cute as they come. The worst lesson yet – expect to get hung up in a pine tree yet. There’s so much to learn.
  • Jan 9 – 8th lesson – (½ hr) $7.50. After a month’s vacation it was heavenly to be up again. Didn’t do as badly as I expected tho I’m still heavy-handed on the stick and rudders. Bumpy today. 3 landings.
  • Feb 3, 1933 – 10th lesson – (½ hr) $7.50, googles, $4.50, helmet $1.75. Made six landings. The field was wet in spots and I did well at hitting them. Wore the new goggles and helmet.
  • Feb 22, 1933 – The Eaglerock down for inspection, so as a great concession I was allowed to fly the Waco F. It flies beautifully. Did some good landings. Walter did some wingovers. The Waco climbs straight up! Real thrills!
  • February 26 – 13th Lesson – (½ hr) $7.50. Back to the Eaglerock. Had a grand time. WH likes to play when there’s a big crowd at the field and zoomed down and up a couple of times to scare some children off the field. Tried on a parachute for the first time (remember Fritz Vinson). For the first time knew where I was ‘at’ when we came out of a wingover.
  • Mar 1, 1933 – 14th Lesson – (½ hr) $7.50. Flew the Eaglerock. Lousy landings again once I didn’t even get down. 
  • March 29 – 16th lesson – (½ hr) For the first time I really flew. Hope it wasn’t just accidental one landing on the wheels, but the others were good. If I can only do as well next time.
  • April 1 – 17th lesson – (½ hr) $7.50. Doing some better WH said I’m most ready to go solo. Wish I could think so.
  • Apr 3, 1933- 18th Lesson – $7.50. Got to the field before I realized the force of the wind. Went up anyway for the experience and it was different. There are so many variables in this game. Didn’t do so well.
  • April 17 – 19th Lesson – In last five minutes got back to starting point. Made first good dead stick landing.
  • May 17 – 20th lesson – HOT – but I’m not – it has been so long since last time. 
  • May 18 – 21st lesson – $7.50. Ah me – 10 ½ hours and no solo yet. Bad business.
  • May 22 – 23rd lesson – $7.50. 6am went around twice and Walter said, “how do you feel this morning? Take it around by yourself.” FIRST SOLO FLIGHT! Made 2 landings, both three pointers. 
Pages found with Helen’s flight information, transcribed above
Gulfport Daily Herald, May 22, 1933

As for the plane lingo she uses, wingovers look like a plane doing a flip, up and over, loop-de-loop. A sideslip is where the plane moves a little sideways while also moving forward to help with alignment. A dead stick landing is when a plane is forced to land because of mechanical issues.

The planes, the Aeronca, Eaglerock, and Waco are all aircraft of the era and also worth a Google search.

Here are some other items included with the flight information.

Helen’s Amateur Pilot’s License (her records show her middle name was Grace, so not sure where the H is coming from)
Bureau of Air Commerce ID card, 1936 (also with the H as middle name).
Letter from Gulfport’s president, Richard G. Cox, 1936
Letter from Gulfport’s President’s Wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Maddox Fox, 1936

These letters, from the President of Gulfport College and his wife, are addressed to where Helen’s family lived. They had moved from Brooklyn to Arlington, New Jersey sometime after Helen had left for college. I don’t believe Helen lived at home again after going to Columbia. She spend her summers teaching athletics at camps or, once graduated, teaching at other colleges, well into her 30s.

When the letters were written, Helen was teaching a Purdue in Indiana, enjoying her time zipping around in the skies.

by Mary James

II. The Aero Show – 1919

I unearthed the fat envelope sent to me, opened but barely. I’d had it for 10 years, under my old newspaper collection from noteworthy events the last 30ish years (big and small stuff): Rodney King, OJ Simpson, Jerry Garcia’s death, a new millennia, 9/11, wars, gay marriage, Bowie’s death, Covid, all-caps-headlines of things Trump did, which were still piling up six months after the election.

From the neatly organized and labeled materials that fell out, I eyed the pilot folder. The items, mostly from 1932-1936, consisted of a training log, a pilot licence, newspaper clippings lauding her, a picture of her in a plane with her cute helmet and goggles, one of her leaning on a plane all cool like, a letter from her Dean praising her, an invite to fly with a famous racing couple (Jim and Mary Haizlip, who are worth a Google search), etc.

Then I noticed something different from the other items, a few scraps of paper seemingly ripped out of a journal. The handwriting and language were different than her usual writing. It said:

“Thursday 3/14/19

During school hours is too dry and dull to write here. For once I really didn’t go to the doctor’s. Instead I came home and ran over my Latin (literally) and wrote a composition on ‘Americanism’. At five o’clock I changed my dress and had my supper and I left the house at five-thirty to meet my father in New York at 6:15pm. When I got off the car at Park Row, New York, he was already there and we then took the subway to 23rd street station and walked about four blocks to Madison Square Garden (which is a building about the size of the Hippodrome in St Paul, only larger) and walked in upon the Aero Show!! No one could ever tell about all we saw there, it would be impossible! There were big aeroplanes and small ones, and flying boats, and planes that didn’t swim, and balloons and…”

Journal page from 1919

I realized this was her, at age 16, going with her father (my great grandfather) to Madison Square Garden to see an air show and it was a harbinger to everything else.

She would have travelled to meet her father from Flatbush, Brooklyn, where she lived with her parents, Frank and Gertrude Skinner, and her much younger sister Mary Elizabeth (my maternal grandmother and namesake).

What took me longer to figure out is that the current Madison Square Garden isn’t where it used to be, which is why she could get off at 23rd Street and walk four blocks and be there. It was where Madison Square Park is now. 

She also mentions in the note, ‘For once I really didn’t go to the doctor’s.’ This, my mother told me, refers to childhood health problems — seemingly mostly sinus in nature — that persisted well into adulthood. Those problems are also why she knew how big the Hippodrome in St. Paul was — she left Brooklyn for a while to live in the mid-west, where the air was supposed to be better (another theory is that she hated the aforementioned church and went to live with family friends to get away from her strict parents).

Then I dug in further.

But first, as the internet has absolutely everything, I found an ad for the air show on Ebay and purchased it.

Magazine ad for The Annual Aeronautical Exposition in 1919, which Helen attended when she was 16