Thaden finally had a road to follow as she flew over the old mining town of Tombstone. The road soon veered off to the right, threading through a pass in the Mule Mountains. She was close enough to the mountainside to see holes outlined in timber—old abandoned mines. She fully expected an ancient, bearded miner to wave to her from the door of his claim, a mule tied to a scrawny tree down his namesake hillside. She did spot a family of deer who gazed at her as she sped by, but they didn’t seem concerned. Thaden wondered how many thousands of deer she had flown over but didn’t possess the hunter’s eyes to see. She kept the Mule Mountains to her west, then went on into Douglas and the Sulphur Springs Valley, a 4,150-foot airfield. Her trouble-free leg over the incredibly desolate American desert boosted her confidence, but not all the racers found that leg so easy. It was a day of forced landings in godforsaken places.
Vera Dawn Walker’s only instrument, a compass, was not reliable, so she resolved to fly from one town to the next via the highway map rather than try to navigate with it. She had been advised that once over Tucson, she would see smoke from the smelters in Douglas and could follow the railroad tracks right to the airport. However, she took the wrong set of tracks heading east, the ones that were northeast instead of southeast. Finally realizing her mistake, Walker straggled into Douglas after backtracking a long way around the high Chiricah Mountains, the great circle route.
The tiny flyer later told the other racers, “I knew I was going the wrong direction when I saw those dry salt beds near Lordsburg, New Mexico. I said to myself that I’d better land while I can, so I did, and refueled at some isolated burg. I wasn’t there three minutes before the entire town was at the strip crowding around my plane.
“I got started again and was going southwest this time towards Douglas when I hit this cumulus thunderstorm—it wasn’t near anything. I fought with those controls, and battled that storm, and finally just dove to get out.”
Walker had made a classic beginner’s mistake. Seeing what she thought was an isolated summer shower, she skirted it too closely and found herself immediately drawn into the thunderstorm as it swelled. Even though she was in an enclosed cabin, the rain sounded like hail, and visibility no longer existed. With no reference outside because of the heavy rain, it would be impossible to maintain level flight without a horizon. Walker didn’t know up from down, and the normal “seat of the pants” signals for right-side-up flight were gone.
Vera Dawn Walker
She explained, “I couldn’t tell where in the world I was in that storm. I lost flying speed and, like I said, just dove to get out. The controls finally responded, or that would’ve been it for old Vera Dawn.” When she fell out the bottom of the storm, or spun or spiraled out, she could see again and righted the airplane. She was lucky to be high enough to regain control before exploding into the earth.
“’Course I had to put the plane down in this cow pasture,” (undoubtedly until she could breathe again), “and I did that all right, but I was surrounded by cattle. Y’know they’ll eat the fabric right off your plane, so I had to stick with the plane.”
Walker got that right. What beast could resist fabric impregnated with dope, a glue mixture. Dope dried on linen made for strong wings, and cows considered airplane fabric dessert. Any pilot who left her airplane alone in a pasture with cows would be looking at bare ribs when she returned. Then when old Bessie had her fill, she would lean up against the rudder and massage her back. The big scratching post would be bent up all over and naked if the pilot left it for long.
Walker’s method for fending off the curious cows was to glare at them. “They just looked at me, and I stared at them until finally some man came walking by with Chubbie Keith-Miller—she’d crashed right nearby—and they got me out.”
Walker had landed to regain her composure after her scare in the weather, and had plenty of fuel to go on. The men with Keith-Miller shooed the cows away for a clear path for Walker’s takeoff. They directed her to Douglas.
Keith-Miller had run out of fuel and was down at Elfrida, Arizona. Someone reckoned she had walked eighteen miles for help, then she spent the night helping repair her damaged airplane. Ranchers out in the middle of nowhere were fascinated to have a woman drop down from the sky. Even more astonishing, the woman was flying in a transcontinental air race! The ranchers were isolated, used to repairing farm machinery, and had the tools on hand to do so. What could be different about an airplane engine, filing out a bent prop, or patching a torn wingtip? They weren’t afraid to jump right in and help, cheer for their new friend, and hope she would win the race. Someone always seemed to be on hand to help after a forced landing.
Opal Kunz made a forced landing as well, because she was out of fuel. Kunz was a big city girl used to sophisticated, bustling Manhattan. She was awed by her country’s great Southwest. How could so few people live so far apart with no theater or deli or shopping or even real trees? Though the country had an austere charm, it was devoid of luxuriant vegetation. In fact, the cacti personified its neighborhood, hardy and prickly, yet intriguing in its own form of resplendent beauty.
Blanche Noyes
Irrepressible Blanche Noyes, who had learned to fly only six weeks before the derby, had wandered off course, landing in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico. She had an imaginative tale to tell.
Noyes described her adventure in the evening’s “hangar flying” session. “I ran into a bad ground fog, mostly factory smoke, and lost myself completely. I thought I had better land and get my bearing. It was an orange grove, I think.”
“Blanche,” the always forceful Vera Dawn Walker interjected, “there’s no oranges down there on the border. You had to be in mesquite.”
“Well, then, there were horses and cows. And then suddenly, from every direction, Mexicans began to appear. I never have seen anything as mysterious as the way those Mexicans bobbed up.”
Noyes went on, “I asked them questions but couldn’t get a thing out of them. All they could do was shake their heads and say, ‘¿Quién sabe?’ I asked where the United States was, but got nowhere with that, so I pulled out my map and showed it to them.
“They knew what a map was, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get any directions out of them. Just then a lot of Mexicans rode up on horses with fancy trimmings. So, I thought it was time for me to get out of there. I took off and flew north about twenty miles, then I hit Douglas.”
By the time the women arrived at Douglas, Marvel Crosson’s ghastly fate was no longer speculative. The wreckage and her body had been found. Twelve miles north of Wellton, four Arizona ranchers had seen an airplane similar in description to Crosson’s plunge into a grove of distant cottonwood trees. They did not see a parachute open. Though searchers had looked for the spot all night, they couldn’t locate it in the dark, rough country of willows and mesquite. Interspersed with the tall, rangy cottonwoods, the mean catclaw acacia was enough to stop anyone in his tracks. At first light, Deputy Sheriffs Victor Gael and J. C. Livingston, serenaded by the haunting song of the cactus wren, located the aircraft wreckage, and two hundred yards away, Marvel Crosson was found with every bone broken. The men said that she had been killed instantly, speculating that she had been thrown from the airplane with the parachute pack rupturing upon impact with the earth. Others theorized either she had jumped too low for the parachute to open or that it had malfunctioned.
Louise Thaden couldn’t help but wonder if Crosson had experienced the same carbon monoxide poisoning that she had in her Travel Air. She felt a sudden fear for the other women flying Travel Airs. Was the problem in the airplane?
Editorial writers were not shy about expressing their opinions of the Air Derby in light of Crosson’s death. The New York American thought it might be too late to call off the race, but it should be the last of its kind.
“The air is not yet safe for racing, and it is undermining public confidence in aviation, as the coming and best of all means of transportation, when human life is needlessly sacrificed in
such ill-advised contests as the women’s air derby. A fine young woman has been called as a sacrifice on the altar of a premature competition. Air racing for women should be discouraged as a far too hazardous adventure.” A self-righteous, pretentious Oklahoma oilman by the name of Erle P. Haliburton was succinct and certain: “Women have conclusively proven that they cannot fly.” His newspaper quote went on, “Women have been dependent on men for guidance for so long that when they are put on their resources they are handicapped.”
The racers and their supporters, grieving over Crosson’s death but still confident, were angered by the patronizing commentary. Race manager Frank Copeland, as outraged as the racers themselves, responded, “We wish to thumb our collective noses at Haliburton. There will be no stopping this race.”
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1929
Race Day 4
DOUGLAS TO COLUMBUS TO EL PASO
118 MILES, 65 MILES
Got a lovely invitation from Henry Ford to come to Dearborn tomorrow and hear Mr. Hoover tell Mr. Edison what the electric light had meant to him before becoming a Republican. Was headed over there and ran into a thick fog and had to come back here. Chicago might be wicked, but that lighted field looked mighty good at night, and I sure want to thank Mr. Edison personally tomorrow for inventing those little things.
Yours, Will Rogers
Syndicated newspaper column
Louise Thaden awakened with a dreadful headache. Where am I, she thought. This is Wednesday, I must be in Douglas, Arizona, flying in an airplane race across the United States of America. Suddenly, she remembered that her friend Marvel Crosson was dead.
Before she had even rolled out of bed, she heard a knock on the door. She presumed it was the hotel wake-up, but Amelia Earhart’s voice called out gently, “Louise, are you up?”
“Not really. Give me a second to wash my face.”
Thaden scurried around trying to make herself presentable, then opened the door to Earhart.
“I was just thinking of Marvel, Amelia,” Thaden said distractedly. “All this seems so unimportant with her life squandered. What are we doing here?”
“Oh, Louise, I know how upset you are, but this race is to prove to the public that airplanes are the transportation of the day and the future, and that women have as strong a right to fly them as men,” Earhart reminded her. “Marvel is cheering each one of us on. You mustn’t be discouraged.”
Earhart’s positive words were just what Thaden needed to hear to get past the immediate tragedy and on to the business at hand. Earhart handed Thaden the morning paper with Marvel Crosson and the other racers prominently pictured on the front page above the fold. Seeing Crosson’s face with its dark curls was painful. Thaden quickly set it aside.
“The weather looks great,” Earhart said. “There will probably be normal thunderstorm activity late in the afternoon. Volunteers are already wiping the oil off the belly of your airplane. I’ll go with you to the airport when you’re ready.”
Earhart gave Thaden a quick hug and was out the door. Thaden thought, leave it to Earhart to make the rounds to raise the morale of the troops. Thaden took a quick minute to reflect in her journal: “When the foreordained time for death comes, how better could one choose than this: ‘the spirit flying free, knowing no transition from the lower fringes of Heaven into its wondrous infinity.’”
Each of the women handled Crosson’s death and the continuing challenge in her own way. Pancho Barnes had bounced back from the malaise infecting the racers and was already at the airport, painting her airplane. She had strayed into Mexico en route to Douglas and, with her sense of humor intact, was painting in large white letters on the fuselage of her Travel Air: MEXICO OR BUST. Might as well tell the world—especially since today’s leg ran right along the Mexican border. Someone would surely stray across. Too bad the real border wasn’t a red painted line as it appeared on the new sectional chart.
The racers gathered by their airplanes. Ruth Elder’s Swallow and Gladys O’Donnell’s Taperwing Waco had mechanics’ help from the start of the race. The others had sporadic assistance from husbands or sponsors or were dependent upon local mechanics to troubleshoot the inevitable mechanical problems that developed along the way. Not surprisingly, the women became good shade-tree mechanics themselves. Thaden and Earhart arrived at the Douglas Airport along with the dawn, and they greeted the other racers.
“Hi, Edith. Your airplane looks fast even tied down. Good luck.”
“Morning, Opal. Hope we find a good tailwind today.”
“Pancho, does ‘Mexico or bust’ mean you’re going or have already been?”
And the race went on, each pilot more determined than ever to fly her airplane well and to finish the race.
The racers were a diverse group with little in common save their love of flying. For example, Edith Magalis Foltz, the woman with the big, friendly smile, had stumbled into aviation by accident. She had somehow invested in an OX5 Eaglerock, and, leaving her toddler to be cared for at home, she barnstormed in it. Foltz then took out a state transport license so she could carry passengers for hire. She flew copilot in a trimotor Bach with Western Air, the first West Coast charter transport between Seattle and San Francisco. Foltz snubbed her nose at transport companies, which invariably said they couldn’t hire women pilots because “women passengers wouldn’t trust another woman.”
Foltz had made it a point to ask the women who flew as her passengers on Western Air how they felt about riding behind her, and she said they all seemed pleased. When Western Air was sold to United Airlines, that was the end of her career as a budding airline pilot. Some people said that Foltz’s brush with transport carriage made her the world’s first female airline pilot. Nearly a dozen others eventually made that same claim.
No one dreamed that it would be more than another four decades before the airlines would hire female pilots. They never would have believed that it would take until the early seventies for the airlines to open their membership to women. When the Department of Commerce proposed grounding professional female pilots for one week each month to ensure safety, one faint (female) voice brought up the delicate problem of enforcement. A study ensued, which apparently became lost and forgotten. However, the subject was not finished. As it evolved, women pilots were forced to retake all their pilot certificate and rating exams after recovering from the “illness” of childbirth. Other countries were even more discriminatory. Early on, Canadian female airline pilots were required to ground themselves the moment they suspected they might be pregnant. Crosson’s death added impetus to an ongoing effort to ground women to keep them in their place.
Edith Foltz had endured some critical comments in the air derby by competing in an eccentric airplane, the Alexander Eaglerock Bullet. Foltz retorted that retracting the gear on an airplane and enclosing the cockpit wasn’t odd, it was state of the art. And the Bullet was fast. She was holding her own in the CW class, standing right behind Phoebe Omlie. Foltz was right that the Bullet was an engineering breakthrough.
Edith Foltz
It was time to fire up and go. Foltz suffered standard pretakeoff nerves as she taxied out. The luxury of an enclosed cockpit allowed her to spread out her charts on the right seat and open the air vents for as much air as she wanted.
She could reach around the seat and swig some water as the cockpit temperatures spiraled, and she had jettisoned the helmet and goggles needed for flying open cockpit. Foltz loved the Bullet, though she conceded sometimes its Kinner engine was less than reliable. She was careful to stay far away from slow airspeed in a tight turn, a maneuver approaching a spin entry, because she knew the factory test pilots had declared a flat spin likely unrecoverable in this airplane.
The route out of Douglas to Columbus was sixty-six degrees on the compass. Again, flyers cut through a tiny corner of Mexico. Douglas was close to 4,200 feet in elevation with higher terrain on the Arizona–New Mexico border, where it was necessary to cut between a 6,900-foot peak and an 8,56
5-foot peak and across dry river beds. Edith Foltz noted that all the roads seemed to go north out of Douglas. Did nobody have reason to drive east? A little town named Paradise was up in the nearby mountains, and she wondered what old prospector would consider that dry, empty country paradise. Taking the shortcut a few miles through Mexico, Foltz finally picked up a road running right into Columbus. The so-called Columbus Airport seemed to be a repeat of Douglas—high, hot, and desolate. The heat rose off the desert floor in visible ripples. It took the air away. Most of the racers, having not bothered to dig out their water, found it difficult to even walk upon deplaning. They thought they were too tough to worry about dehydration, but their debilitation was a reminder that they were mortal. The excited air-race spectators seemed to be of an independent bent, hardworking ranchers and miners, and they were generous to the women with snacks and cold drinks, pleased to have this brush with history. Without meaning to give their admirers short shrift, the racers were in and out of Columbus in record time, just long enough to refuel and restart a hot engine.
The Columbus–El Paso leg was an eighty-degree heading and about seventy statute miles right down the border fence. The ground was simply bare, save a skinny gratuitous road, a bare thread below, paralleling the border. It was tempting to fly with one wing in Mexico and the other in the United States. Were their brains going soft? Wasn’t fuzziness just supposed to happen at altitude? Maybe this oven boiled their brains, too.
When Foltz spotted the Rio Grande River and a lone hill just west of El Paso, she knew she was getting pretty close to the airport. The brown desert floor gradually turned green as she progressed. Water plus brown equals green. Gradually, the dusty nothingness gave way to cotton fields. These led to the grazing cattle and the prosperous-looking farms of west Texas.
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