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Airline industry scheduled to honor 8 original stewardesses

By Gay Pauley

"If I had it to do over, says Jessie Carter Bronson, "I would have stayed with the airlines.

Bronson, 72, a retired nurse, is one of the remaining four of the eight originals the first women airlines stewardesses. They were folk heroines of the early years of commercial aviation and on May 15, the industry will pay tribute to them, their pioneering 50 years ago, and to the 125,000 flight attendants of the jet age 1980.

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Fifty years ago! Bronson said it doesnt seem all that long ago when she was working on Ford 80-As and Ford Trimotors. She flew the run from San Francisco to Cheyenne. The flight, in good weather, took about 20 hours and made 13 stops.

"We signed on at $125 a month and got $5 extra if we were stuck because of a storm or other delays, she said. "But you must remember, those were the Depression years and we at least had jobs. I had not been brought up on money so the pay didn't bother me.

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"All of us were young and the hours of delay didn't bother us.

The mailbags were the real payload. "We always had piles of them in the back of the plane and if the plane overweighted, out went stewardess, passengers if necessary, but the mail must go through.

"The planes (on which I worked) could carry 15 passengers, but we rarely had that many.

United Airlines said the idea for female attendants came from Steve Stimpson, San Francisco district manager for Boeing Air Transport, forerunner of United Airlines. In 1930, he had met Ellen Church, a registered nurse and student pilot, who wondered whether she could get into flying, perhaps as a pilot.

Stimpson, recalling the stewards who served as passengers on a steamship line for which he previously worked, thought the idea could be transferred to aircraft.

Eventually he went to W.A. Patterson, assistant to Boeings president and later president of United Airlines. Patterson gave Stimpson permission to hire eight stewardesses on a three-month trial.

Stimpson immediately hired Ellen Church, and with her assistance, seven more nurses. In those days, one of the requirements was the registered nurse degree.

The long, rough flights in drafty, unpressurized cabins caused most of the original eight to clip their wings and return to ground jobs.

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Bronson said she joined up because, 1 was working in a San Francisco hospital and wed all heard about this new career, nurses on airplanes.

"One evening I zipped over to where they were recruiting and was hired. I was almost 21, fresh out of R.N training. This was a whole new world to me.

Stewardesses duties were far afield from those today.

"We had to carry all the luggage on board, she said. "And if the wicker seats (the type ifsed in the early planes) were not fastened tightly, we had to bolt them down ourselves. Then we would dust the whole plane.

"Some of us joined bucket brigades to help fuel the planes.

"We also helped pilots push the planes into hangars and made sure that some passenger didnt open the exit door by mistake when going to the washroom.

These duties were in addition to their "normal job of serving box lunches, usually cold chicken, pouring coffee from Thermoses and comforting airsick passengers.

There were no drinks served. "Most of our passengers were businessmen, Bronson recalled, "but we were flying during Prohibition. Businessmen who wanted a drink brought their own flasks.

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