Walking on Air (35 page)

82
.
Washington Daily News
, 1 January 1935.

83
. The National Air Races were held in Los Angeles 4–7 September 1936. Cleveland, the traditional site of the Air Races, was undergoing an airport expansion.

84
. Don Dwiggins,
They Flew the Bendix Race: The History of the Competition for the Bendix Trophy
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1985), 60.

85
. Thaden,
High, Wide and Frightened
, 109.

86
. When Phoebe was home in June, they planned the fishing trip to begin with his arrival in Washington on August 11.
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 7 August 1936;
New York Times
, 7 August 1936.

87
. She wrote him again a month later to say that she had learned that the City of Memphis could request her “services in an advisory capacity on their airport work from September first until after the election” and thereby avoid her having to resign. Crump declined, saying he couldn't “figure out anything for you.” She resigned
September 15. Letters, Phoebe Omlie to E. H. Crump, 27 May 1936 and 1 July 1936; E. H. Crump to Phoebe Omlie, 8 July 1936, Crump Papers.

88
. Letters to and from Molly Dewson in 1936 indicate that in the event of a reorganization in the new FDR administration and/or the expected resignation of Eugene Vidal, Phoebe should be considered for assistant secretary of commerce (the position she had tried to secure in 1933). Letters and memos in Democratic National Committee, Women's Division, folder 151, Correspondence TN Omlie 1936–1937, FDRL.

89
. “How and Why,” Omlie Collection.

1
.
New York Times
, 7 August 1936.

2
. Story here recapped from numerous newspaper articles published after the crash, including those in the
New York Times, Washington Daily News, Time
(17 August 1936),
Commercial Appeal, Memphis Press-Scimitar, Syracuse (NY) Herald
, and the
Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer.

3
. Phoebe filed a death claim against Chicago & Southern Air Lines that was settled for $5,000 a year later.
Commercial Appeal
, 15 July 1937.

4
.
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 6 August 1936;
Commercial Appeal
, 7 August 1936.

5
. Foreword,
The Omlie Story.

6
.
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 7 August 1936.

7
. Longtime friend and associate, W. Percy McDonald donated a portion of his family's plot to the Omlies; Phoebe was later buried beside her husband in another McDonald plot. Crawford McDonald, interview with author, October 2006, Memphis.

8
.
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 10 August 1936;
Commercial Appeal
, 10 August 1936.

9
. Dedication and Foreword,
The Omlie Story
.

10
. John Faulkner had obtained his pilot's license shortly after his brothers Dean and Bill, though he did not join the Flying Faulkners. As manager of Mid-South Airways, he continued to offer flying lessons, charter work, and run the agency for Waco airplanes until his brother Bill bought a farm called Greenfield in 1938 and wanted John to run it for him. John Faulkner,
My Brother Bill: An Affectionate Reminiscence
(London: Trident Press, 1963), 176; see also Boltner,
Faulkner
, 353, 392. Copy of stock certificate, issued to Maud Falkner, 15 September 1936, Omlie Collection. After Faulkner left, Harry T. Wilson, who had worked for Omlie for many years, took over management of the company. See Lydia Spencer and Cathy Marcinko, “Father of Mid-South Aviation”
Old Shelby County Magazine
, No. 32, 2001, 5.

11
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Louise Thaden, 12 August 1974, Omlie Collection.

12
. Thaden,
High, Wide and Frightened
, 117.

13
. Ibid., 119–121.

14
.
Washington Post
, 1 September 1936.

15
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to George Lewis, 26 August 1936, Personnel File, Omlie Collection.

16
. Letter, J. F. Victory to Phoebe Omlie, 28 August 1936, Personnel File, Omlie Collection.

17
. Because of her unfamiliarity with the program, Blanche confronted some serious problems working with the WPA. In early 1937, Phoebe was obliged to return to Washington to try to save the program. She later convinced President Roosevelt to support legislation to make air marking a permanent part of the CAA. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Louise Thaden, 31 August 1974, Omlie Collection.

18
. By the end of the war, only about 3,500 of the original markers remained and Noyes's postwar responsibility (she was now employed by the CAA) was to raise money to reconstruct the markings. However, with the advent of technological developments like radio navigational beacons, air marking became much less important and eventually evolved into airport marking, painting large numbers and letters on runways. Noyes remained with the program until she retired as chief of air marking in 1972. Today, Ninety-Nines continue the tradition of airport marking.
Jefferson City (Missouri) Daily Capitol News
, 30 July 1938; Jenny T. Beatty and Ellen Nobles-Harris, “99s Then and Now: Airmarking,”
International Women Pilots Magazine
, May/June 2003, 6.

19
. Phoebe and Stella were close personal friends. In an article discussing the lack of domestic skills of both women—“Mrs. Omlie pays virtually no attention to her home” and “Miss Aiken [
sic
] admits that she can't boil water”—they discussed frequently dining together. Emma Perley Lincoln,
Washington Post
, 24 August 1935.

20
. Susan Ware,
Partner and I: Molly Dewson, Feminism and New Deal Politics
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987), 307.

21
. “Taking to the Air,”
Democratic Digest
, December 1936, 17;
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 2 November 1936;
New York Times
, 5 September 1936.

22
.
St. Paul Pioneer Press
, 3 October 1936.

23
. “Taking to the Air,”
Democratic Digest
, December 1936, 17.

24
.
St. Paul Pioneer Press
, 3 October 1936.

25
. Phoebe Omlie report to Max Cook, “Aviation Training Prospectus,” Omlie Collection.

26
. This ensured Blanche Noyes a permanent position in the CAA; the agreement also led to the federal Civilian Pilot Training Program modeled on the Tennessee example. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to H. Glenn Buffington, 16 October 1973; letter, Phoebe Omlie to Louise Thaden, 31 August 1974, Omlie Collection. A similar letter is referenced in Ann L. Cooper,
How High She Flies
(Arlington Heights, IL: Aviatrix Publishing, 1999), 67.

27
. Exchange of letters between Molly Dewson and J. M. Johnson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, 17 December 1936 to 23 December 1936 respectively, Democratic National Committee-Women's Division, Correspondence, Tennessee, Omlie, Mrs. Phoebe, 1936–1937, Box 151, FDRL.

28
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Molly Dewson, 23 December 1936, FDRL.

29
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Molly Dewson, 31 December 1936, FDRL.

30
. Letter, Molly Dewson to Eleanor Roosevelt, 14 January 1937, FDRL.

31
. Telegram and follow-up note in FDRL.

32
. Letter, Molly Dewson to Eleanor Roosevelt, 7 April 1937, Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Section 213, FDRL.

33
. Letter, Eleanor Roosevelt to Molly Dewson, 21 April 1937, Eleanor Roosevelt, White House Correspondence, Box 1537–1539, FDRL.

34
. Photo of Amelia and Phoebe in Miami before her last flight published in the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 11 June 1937; copy of the photo in the Omlie Collection. See Carol Ankney article in
Sturgis (Michigan) Daily Journal
, 2 July 1970; see also letters to Glenn Buffington, 28 December 1974, and to Louise Thaden, 31 August 1974, in which she describes her visit with Amelia in Karl Voelters's hangar at Miami and the photograph taken at the time, Omlie Collection. Phoebe also describes this meeting in a letter to Mardo Crane, 28 March 1974, Omlie file, Ninety-Nines Museum.

35
. Tennessee General Assembly, House Bill No. 1709, Chapter No. 305,
Public Acts, 1937
, 1190–1203.

36
.
Facts on Aviation for the Future Flyers of Tennessee
, booklet published by the Tennessee Bureau of Aeronautics, 1941; Curriculum for Memphis City Schools ground school, 1938; Exhibit “B,” Personnel File, Omlie Collection.

37
. The cost of learning to fly in 1938 as revealed in Phoebe Omlie's report: 15 hours of dual instruction at $7 per hour and 35 hours of solo guidance at $5 per hour. Total cost: $280.

38
.
Nashville Tennessean
, 11 December 1938.

39
. Roosevelt Letter to the National Aviation Forum, 24 January 1939, available at
The American Presidency Project
,
www.Presidency.ucsb.edu
.

40
. Dominick A. Pisano,
To Fill the Skies with Pilots: The Civilian Pilot Training Program, 1939–1946
(Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 58–59.

41
. The CPTP is often referred to by historians as “the brainchild of Robert H. Hinckley.” However, Hinckley acknowledged that he modeled the national program after Tennessee's in a speech at Nashville, 19 May 1942. Once the federal government launched its program, Tennessee abandoned its own program. By that time, TCPTP had given free ground school courses to more than 4,000 people and turned out 150 private pilots. See Pisano,
To Fill the Skies with Pilots
, 3, 10; Janene Leonhirth, “They also flew: Women Aviators in Tennessee, 1922–1950” (MA thesis, Middle Tennessee State University, 1990), 20. Hinckley speech cited in Personnel File, Exhibit “B”, Omlie Collection.

42
. “Civilian Pilot Training Program,” National Museum of the United States Air Force,
www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets
. See also Pisano,
To Fill the Skies with Pilots
, 50–57, 76.

43
. Roosevelt Executive Order #8974, issued 12 December 1941, shifted all pilot training to military purposes and converted the CPTP to the War Training Service. John R. M. Wilson,
Turbulence Aloft: The Civil Aeronautics Administration Amid Wars and Rumors of War, 1938–1953
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, 1979), 102.

44
. Letter, Robert Hinckley to Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in Planck,
Women with Wings
, 150.

45
. The three-member Air Safety Board was part of the CAA but operated independently. It was assigned to investigate accidents, determine their probable cause, and make recommendations for accident prevention.
FAA Historical Chronology, 1926–1996
.

46
. Exchanges, dated 31 October 1939 to 4 April 1939, Presidential Personal Files, Box 3969, FDRL.

47
. Exhibit “B,” Personnel File, Omlie Collection.

48
. Letters in White House Correspondence, Eleanor Roosevelt, Box 1564–1565, FDRL.

49
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Eleanor Roosevelt, 15 January 1941; Letter, Eleanor Roosevelt to Jesse Jones, 23 January 1941, White House Correspondence, Eleanor Roosevelt, Box 1607, FDRL.

50
.
Memphis Press-Scimitar
, 5 February 1941.

51
. Letter, Phoebe Omlie to Louise Thaden, 6 December 1973, Omlie Collection.

52
.
New York Times
, 9 March 1941;
Miami Herald
, 11 January 1946.

53
. “Phoebe Omlie Hops Off for Defense,”
Democratic Digest
, March 1941, 16.

54
.
New York Times
, 9 March 1941; Exhibit “A” Personnel File, Omlie Collection.

55
.
Commercial Appeal
, 28 May 1941. The Civil Pilot Training Act of 1939 contained a provision introduced by Rep. Everett Dirksen stipulating that “none of the benefits of training or programs shall be denied on account of race, creed or color.” As a result, the CPTP offered instruction for African American students in five black colleges, training approximately 2,000 black pilots during the war. Pisano,
To Fill the Skies with Pilots
, 49.

56
.
Jackson (Tennessee) Sun
, 1 December 1942.

57
.
Washington Daily News
, 6 April 1943.

58
. In November 1942, a couple months after the instructor school began in Nashville, the first class of fifty women entered training for the WAFs.
New York Times
, 18 November 1942.

59
. Percy McDonald, “Aviation in Tennessee,” address delivered 10 August 1944, Nashville, Personnel File, Omlie Collection. Janene Leonhirth, “Tennessee's Experiment: Women as Military Flight Instructors,”
Tennessee Historical Quarterly
51 (Fall 1992): 170–178.

60
. Tennessee Aeronautics Commission, Minutes, 27 November 1942, p. 7, TAC Box 1, Folder 4, Tennessee State Archives, Nashville.

61
. Col. Herbert S. Fox, “Women Take Wings,”
Charm
magazine, May 1943, 57.

62
. Letter, Robert Hinckley to W. Percy McDonald, 30 June 1942, quoted in Leonhirth, “They also flew,” 63.

63
. Letter of invitation, W. Percy McDonald, “Re: Free Flying Instructors Course for Women Pilots,” 1 September 1942, Omlie Collection.

64
. Jane Eads,
Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen-Times
, 13 December 1942.

65
. Gene Slack, “Tennessee's Airwomen,”
Flying
magazine, May 1943, 128.