TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- The world's first airlines stewardess, Mrs. Ellen Church Marshall, 60, died yesterday from injuries sustained in a horse-back riding accident.
Mrs. Marshall, wife of a Terre Haute banker, originated the idea of airline hostesses and served on the first flight herself 35 years ago. The plane was a Boeing 80A, a 3-engine craft that carried 11 passengers at a speed of 120 miles an hour.
She died in Union Hospital after emergency surgery for head injuries sustained when she fell from the horse and struck a railroad siding. She had been riding on the private trail of the Weston Paper Co. A company security guard found her body.
The Weston board chairman, Ruel Burns Jr., said Mrs. Marshall had taken a horse from his private stable on the company grounds for an early morning ride.
Mrs. Marshall was a registered nurse in San Francisco when she convinced United Air Lines it should have women as hostesses on its maiden flights. She made the first hostess flight herself May 15, 1930.
Later, she ran a training program for stewardesses and wrote a manual that was considered the bible for stewardess training.
Only last month she had received the Amelia Earhart Memorial Award for her contribution to aviation and air travel.
She had worked as an administrator of Union Hospital from 1952 until her death.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
