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:

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.

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.)

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:

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!