Tag / female pilot

by Mary James

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

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).

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.

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

11. Aviatrix, Sir/Madam, and The Ninety-Nine’s

In the last post, we established that Helen was way more foot loose and fancy free than her outward persona would indicate. My husband commented about the cruise post and how strange it must have been, in 1934, to meet a single, 31 year-old woman, traveling alone, who flew planes, wants to know all about boat engines and navigation, knows all about sports, has an M.A. from Columbia, is wearing slacks, and may or my not be perched on a railing of a freight boat, highball in hand — not to mention she is funny, flirty, and one sweet patootie to boot (that meant pretty back then, and I say that it is true, objectively, as an impartial Great Niece). Here she is:

Helen Skinner, circa 1934, Gulf Port College, looking good and hiding her cray cray side

Below are some additional flight artifacts from the 1930s.

Beep Beep, Aviatrix on Board!

I swear I posted this one already, but now I can’t find it. Helen taught Physical Education in summers at Purdue University in Indiana, and luckily they had an airfield (perhaps that is why she taught there Amelia Earhart also taught at Purdue at the same time, but it seems not in the summers. Helen logged many air hours there and got a nice shout out and photo in the Lafayette Journal.

High flying Helen, featured in the Lafayette Journal (which still exists)

Note it says she was the FIRST WOMAN on the Purdue faculty to fly solo from the airfield. And that she is popular (among the male flyers, heh). The Capt L.I. Aretz, who is mentioned in the snippet, has lots of press with Earhart. Not that it’s a competition or anything, but still, Helen was first to fly solo from their airfield and not anyone else.

Dear Sir Madam:

The below letter is fun if you look closely. Do that. You’ll see it is a template. There is preprinted text with salutations and addresses and such (the preprinted text is darker — look at the numbers after ‘license No.” for instance). Then look at the salutation and see the XXX typed over the word ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ is typed in after it. The 1930s was an era of Sirs doing official things that needed letterhead. So it made sense then that Sir was built into the template. But not for long! Here comes Madam Helen, swooping in after a perfect wing over! The letter uses both Miss and Madam, as seems appropriate for the time, since Ms. wasn’t around just yet.

(I just looked up the Mr./Mrs./Ms./Miss. history and it is a hoot. Google about it AFTER you are done with this post.)

Letter containing Helen’s Pilot License and ID, from the Department of Commerce, 1936

Now I am looking up details about the letter:

J. Carroll Cone, who penned it, or at least dictated it, was a bigwig in aviation and became an assistant director for the Air Commerce Bureau under FDR and others. Robert R. Reining was Chief of the Bureau of Air Commerce Registration. He’s named several times in a journal article from the The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery alongside picture of Amelia Earhart.

The enclosed license and ID are shown back in this post.

The address the letter was sent to in Arlington, New Jersey, was not Helen’s, but her parents, as Helen was a bit nomadic, especially in the summers, and this was August.

Ninety-Nine’s

The next artifact is the card in the image below. The Ninety Nine’s are female pilots, named after the number of charter members who first were licensed. Helen was not part of that original group and I can’t find the membership history outside of the charter members, but for what it’s worth, the group was started in 1929 and Helen got her license in 1934. I have in my possession one Ninety Nine’s membership club, good from September 1936 to September 1937:

Membership Card for the Ninety-Nine’s, Sept 1936 – Sept 1937

That is business card sized and would have been tricky to roll into a typewriter, but whomever typed it was skilled. Dorothy George, who signed it, is mentioned in this newsletter about the Ninety-Nine’s from 1938, which is all festive for Thanksgiving.

Then in 1939, Helen received an invite from a Miss Jacqueline Cochran (who at the time was busy setting airspeed records — I suspect she might not have actually penned the invite) — to a buffet in honor of Bettie Gillies (this is when Bettie became president of the club, when she was a wee 31 years old). I don’t know if Helen attended the event, because by that point her life had taken a loopdeloop and she was living in Western Canada, was married, and fiddling with motorcycles and cars.

The invite mentions the Graybar Building. That is still there and very art deco looking. And Michel’s on 53rd Street was fancy and formal looking.

A room full of female pilots in the 1930s musta been something to behold.

I keep finding more things! Like a personalized barometer, tickets to the 1932 Olympics, and a syrupy letter from Helen’s soon to be brother-in-law (my grandfather, who I have been told was not a bit syrupy). But those will wait until the next post, as I don’t want to extend the title of this one more. Until soon!

by Mary James

8. Amelia Earhart Coincidences

Helen told friends that she’d lived in a dorm once inhabited by Amelia Earhart. I Googled about this. Amelia Earhart, who was six years older than Helen, attended Columbia University in 1919-1920. Helen was first at Columbia in 1920-1924 and then again in 1931. So it would have occurred in 1921-1924 or in 1931.

Another coincidence is that they both taught at Purdue in the same year — Earhart from 1935 to her disappearance 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. 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:

The back says, Helen, Purdue, Lafayette.
“Purdue University, Aerodrome” It was likely 1936.

Next up: Leaving familiar shores.

by Mary James

4. The Helen Artifacts

Another large envelope, vying for size with the flight one, was Helen’s 1937 freight boat trip around the world. In it I found that my uncle had transcribed her journal – which came to 70 typed printed pages – without using a scanner, which must have been painstaking because her handwriting was smaller than the font on a side-effects label (see below) – like she didn’t want anyone reading it at the time. But she did later, when she got older, as she was the one who curated the notes and pictures, as all the envelopes had the same handwriting, but a half a font bigger.

Pages from Helen’s journal from her freight boat trip around the world, 1937.
The pages are 4×7″ (my iPhone XR is 3×6″ so only a little smaller, to give you an idea of the size).

But before heading around the world, let’s look into her early years and what might have set her on such an adventurous path.

by Mary James

2. The Annual Aeronautical Exposition – 1919

From the neatly labeled materials that Helen left for family, I started with the pilot folder. The items, mostly from 1932-1936, consisted of a training log, pilot license, newspaper clippings, a few picture of her in or leaning on planes, an invite to fly with a famous racing couple (Jim and Mary Haizlip, who are worth a looksee). But one item was older. On a scrap of paper seemingly ripped out of a journal, with 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…”

Helen Skinner’s journal page from 1919, when she was 16

This was her at age 16, going with her father to Madison Square Garden to see an air show. 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).

Bit of trivia: 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 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).

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