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the home of Marion Brown in Hammond, Louisiana. She was Class 43W2. It's the eighth day of August, 2000. Okay, Marion, we'll start out and you can tell us your name, where you were born, when,

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and we'll start from there. Marion Brown Okay, Marion, my maiden name was Shore. My first marriage was Betzler, and my last marriage was Brown.

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I have two children, two sons, one still in Ohio and one is in Baltimore. And I am back home in Louisiana, pretty much home alone. Kelly: And you were born? Steele: I was born in New Orleans, lived there.

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In fact, I had hardly been out of the state when the call came to go to the WASP. And I told my dad, "Well, I would just probably just go as far as Houston." Well, I got that little step in. And then there would come assignment time.

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I said, "Well, maybe Dallas. That won't be too far." So with the four choices, I put the last one was Wilmington, the second to last Detroit, first choice was Dallas, and I forget where the next one was. And of course, where did I get to be sent? Detroit. Never been out of the state hardly, never saw snow before, very intimidated by all this cold

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weather and got permission from my dad. But he was so afraid because he said at that time, he said, "The military is made up of people that are getting away from something." And he had such a bad idea at first, and of course it changed in time.

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Could we go back, Marion, and begin with your childhood? Where did you grow up? Marion: Well, I grew up in New Orleans on the other side of the river in Algiers. Where did you start school?

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I started school over on the other side of the river in New Orleans and went to elementary school and high school there, Berman, and then had a scholarship to what was then southwestern Louisiana. Could it go back into your family?

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Did you have siblings? I had a brother, one brother, and my father came from many generations of brewing, brewmasters, and of course at that time he was kind of out of the brewing business since it was prohibition, But was a very hard working and a good man and set up a cabinet business and did a lot

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of cabinet making for big companies. And then went into wholesale ice cream business because he knew refrigeration oil well. So we grew up enjoying lots and lots of good ice cream. But then when probation was repealed, and of course he was in demand pretty much all

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over the country, but he stayed there in New Orleans and lived there the rest of his life. So we moved over to the other side of the river, New Orleans side. How old were you at that time? I was pretty young because I can remember as a child, you know, we were poor.

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We didn't—it was Depression. We didn't have very much. But we moved over close to the airport in New Orleans and I'd hear airplanes flying over and the big inspiration was a toothpaste ad and it always showed these glamorous girls

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with their helmets on and their goggles holding a toothbrush. It seemed like it was such a glamorous thing to do to learn to fly. Never thought I'd have a chance to even though I lived close to the airport. But of course then when I went away to school, then they started the CPTC program over in

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Lafayette and there were three girls out for the thirty men and the one girl married, so they dropped her and they left another girl and myself. As soon as we graduated, she got married, so she was out and I was the only one that stayed with it and was really my beginning, although we only had about thirty-five, forty

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hours. But then I went to teaching school in New Orleans at McDonough, John McDonough High School. Kelly: Okay, let me back up to your elementary school. Do you remember any of your teachers in elementary school?

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Lowry: No, I can remember the principal, Ms. Hart, and I guess I was kind of a favorite. I did a lot of oil painting then when I was in my school years, high school years. When I graduated, I had painted a picture for her that stayed on her wall in her office there for almost forever until she died.

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At that time I was living in Ohio, so my mother promptly went over to the school and retrieved the picture, which I now have hanging in the room, in the bedroom. When you were in, say, junior high, what did you, what were your ambitions? We didn't have junior high per se.

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It was just eight years of elementary, then four years of high school, and I guess physical education probably as much as anything. Were you active in sports? fair, never outstanding, but always enjoyed it.

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At that time, we didn't have teams, you just played within your school, and it wasn't competitive like today. When you were in elementary and high school, did you live close to the school or did you have to be bused?

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How did you get schooled? Oh, I lived close to the school. And was your brother older than you? Yes, he was five years older.

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And he went to Tulane, didn't finish though. In high school, what was your favorite subject? Oh, I can't remember particularly what was any particular favorite in high school. History was always difficult for me, and math was easy.

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And same way it was in college, because I didn't read enough. I was too busy painting and drawing. Did you learn that painting while you were in high school? Did you take classes?

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Lowdermilk Honstein Yes, I took classes. My folks sent me to a school, and then I went to public classes and stuck with it pretty much until I finished. Can I ask you about your grandparents?

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Were you close to your grandparents? Lowdermilk Honstein No. My father was thirty-two when he married my mother, and I came along some five years later, So I didn't know his parents personally, and I didn't know my mother's parents.

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Her mother died when she was only eight years old in New Orleans at that time. I don't recall if it was diphtheria or pneumonia, but that was before the days of antibiotics, and her mother died very young from that. But she always told interesting stories because they lived up until that time, they lived

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down the French quarters in New Orleans and would talk about having to carry a basket on her arm to go get groceries down to the French market. She always said that's why she stooped a little bit on one side because carrying the heavy basket.

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Mary, as you were growing up, tell me what a Christmas was like in your home. would be just like a Christmas everywhere, always a tree. Dad would put the lights on and then I would do the decorating. And it was a big event when I was a child and then when I became a mother.

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Interviewer When you were in high school, what activities were you in other than just Were you in any clubs? Were you in drama or speech? Steele Well, I was in Girl Reserves, which was similar

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to Girl Scouts, and I started to—later years of high school—started to go to Slidell to the Girl Scout camp as counselor, and did that every summer for, oh, a number of years, And I liked to work with the girls and enjoyed that very much and enjoyed swimming very much. It was a very, very pleasant time.

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And where did you go swimming? Well Lake Pontchartrain, so that was no problem there, swimming there. And then in Girl Scout Camp, it was the Tangibahoa Rivers where the camp was located. And one Sunday, parents used to come visit the girls on Sunday.

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And as counselors, we lived in a tent, wooden board floor in a tent, and the four of us in a tent. And while we were in the dining area, cleaning up the dishes afterwards, we smelled smoke. I went outside and our tent was on fire, burned.

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All the clothes the four of us had burned. My steamer trunk my mother graciously let be used, burned, no bedding at all. And what had happened, one of the parents had thrown a cigarette down and it wasn't out and the pine needles caught fire and destroyed our tent.

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So that was a dramatic thing for all of us, including the children. So most of our swimming, except when the children were around, was skinny-dipping from then on. It was a soup win, too.

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I was going to ask you about your swimsuit, but now I don't. Oh, that one, too. Just the clothes. I can't recall how we got more clothes, but they worked something out, I think.

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Tell me about your mother. Did she participate in things that you were doing at school, PTA or things like that? Not really. I was pretty young in school.

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I really only went to about six and a half years of elementary school, because having a birthday in March, I couldn't enter school until September. And then she never particularly liked me in that old starting school. So I didn't come to think of it.

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I somehow skipped a half a year. And then when we got to the sixth and seventh grade, someone in education said, "These are too old when they get out of school. So somebody decided, "Well, we'll just combine seventh and eighth grade." So today when I go to my high school reunions, here are

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boys and there are men in there and myself, all finished school at 15, which was really too young. I feel like I was cheated a year and a half on education. But that was somebody's idea because thinking we were too old when we got out of school. When you were in high school did you have a high school prom?

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Yes we had a high school prom. Do you want to tell me about that? And I was well I was just fifteen and pretty well sheltered. What do you mean by sheltered?

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Pritchett would have been the only girl and a little older father. So my brother had to go on a date with me to go to the prom. So yes, we had one. It was over in New Orleans, New Orleans side.

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Do you remember what you wore? Yes, I remember the dress very well. Was there competition between you and your brother? No, because he was older, five years older, you know.

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I sort of looked up to him, you know, and I think he just put up with me. As you were growing up, who were your role models? I suppose, come to think of it, I don't think anybody in the national figure because we didn't have television, didn't watch much radio or read much newspapers at that time.

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So I guess maybe Amelia Earhart a little later. Really I can't think of anything, anyone, that made a real big impression on me. Did any teachers in high school make an impression on you? Yes, I seemed to be kind of what you might call a good little girl and always got along

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real well with the teachers. Looking at old report cards, which I have in there, always for departmental grades, they were always excellent, excellent, excellent. So I was probably just a good little girl, what I was supposed to do.

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What kind of academic student were you? good. I'd say good. Good enough to get a scholarship over to Southwestern. How did that make you feel? Well, it made me feel pretty good. The girl that was ahead of me, my closest friend, I was hoping she wouldn't take it and she didn't. Her father was superintendent

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of schools and yet she stayed right there in New Orleans. So it was a break for me, first time to be away from home. And that really helped me a lot going away to school. I think I stepped on your lines and where was the scholarship to? Steele: It was Southwestern Louisiana Institute at the time.

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Now it's the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Kelly: How did your mother and dad feel about your leaving home? Steele: Oh, I think they were kind of proud. They would drive over to see me, although it was a four-hour drive.

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They would drive back and forth on Sundays and usually take my roommate and I to lunch or something. When you entered college, what was your goal? What did you want to be when you graduated?

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Well, I didn't really know because women had a choice, about three choices, teach school, be a nurse, or be a secretary. Secretary really was not the true word. Back then it was typist, typist and be able to file.

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So the only one of those three that appealed was teaching, and that was not really high high priority either, so that's why I went to physical education, which seemed at the time the easiest way out. And it worked out very well.

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How often did you get to go back home while you were a freshman, for example? Oh, probably holidays mainly, because it was a bus trip, about a four-hour bus trip, back and forth. Did you get homesick?

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No. No, no, the folks would be over to—and my brother would come over from his— Tell me about where you lived, why you were— In the dormitory, definitely in a dormitory.

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I don't think my dad would have agreed, as a fifteen-year-old, staying at a house or something like kids do now. What were your dormitories like when you went to school? Well, the first time, it was an old, real old one, and—because it was an old school. But then after that they built a new one and from there on it was very nice.

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Was it co-ed? Oh no. Oh no. I have a grandson now that's going to a co-ed while I'm staying at a co-ed dorm.

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Did you have a roommate? Yes. Tell me about your roommate. The first year, girls, since I knew no one there, girls I didn't know, that were half

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half of your head, and they sort of steered me on the right track. And then after that we picked our own roommates. And one was the girl that flew with me in CPC. But as soon as we graduated she got married and dropped out.

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What was your social life like when you were in college? I was fortunate enough to have a regular boyfriend. He played football and he said in later years, he said, "We were good for each other because we each had somebody we could count on."

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And it's true because I didn't know anyone and he didn't know anyone except the people on the football team and they were older and he was a little shy being from a small town. And by the time when you went to college, your brother was at Tulane? He had—the time I went to college and somewhere along the line, probation was repealed and

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he was back into brewing with my father. So things were much better off now for the family. Did your father have his own company or was he working for— The American Brewing Company.

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I'm doing genealogy, though, on my father's family. And of course, they were brewmasters all the way back as far as we can track back in Germany. And they still have the little brewery, the Ladies, the Ladies are the brewmasters there now in Germany, a little town in Bavaria.

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So that was their whole life. And I never learned to drink beer, enjoy beer, but of course, they always said it was because was doing probation that I grew up and never learned to drink beer. But to them it was quite an art.

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What were you interested in besides fiscal education? Were you in any clubs? In sorority, yes. I was very active in my sorority, Tri Sigma.

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Last year I became president of Panhellenic. I was very interested in sorority work. learned a few of the graces, teas and so forth, and enjoyed it very much and still kept those friendships for many, many years.

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And when you were graduating from college, were you still dating the one boy? He was under the impression, "Now I'm just barely coming up on twenty," and he thought the thing to do now was to get married. And I wasn't about to be ready to get married.

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here, just finished school and just started to learn to fly and just got my license. So that pretty much tapered off. Kelly: Okay. Let's talk about your flying.

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What gave you the love to fly? Lowry: Well, it was kind of an unexpected dream just out of the blue. The dean of women called my roommate and I and asked us if we'd like to learn to fly. And of course, practically just fell right off the chair because it just seemed like

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it was unreal. But that's when they were starting with this civilian pilot training program. And as I say, my school had thirty men. They were going to get the training, so that meant three women.

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And the two of us finished, and the one got married, and that was the end of her training. Kelly: Tell me about—where did you fly? In Lafayette, Louisiana. And how would you get out to the airport?

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Walk and hitchhike. At that time it was safe enough to hitchhike out to the airport. And the people were so friendly, Cajuns over there, so friendly to walk on the way that you could just stop and have coffee. So at that time I wouldn't drink coffee yet, but I did to be sociable. not realizing it was going to be very dark, demitasse.

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So the only way you could get it down was to pile it with sugar. And it was so friendly. And it was such a different time then that you'd get in a car and somebody would give you a ride going back and forth.

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But that was the only way we could get back and forth. There wasn't any cars then, automobiles. Tell me about how you felt the first time you went up in an airplane. Have you a member of the pilot of that airplane?

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Yes, Henry Horsman was his name, instructor, and I just fell in love with him. He was so handsome and glamorous and everything. And he only lasted until the time I soloed because he went with Chicago and Southern was the airline at the time, and he left to go with the airline.

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And I had another instructor I didn't like quite as well, but we got along just fine and finished up with him. How did the other male pilots treat you? I don't think there was any problem.

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I don't know that we even had that much association with each other, because you'd be scheduled to fly and you'd get out there for your time. And then I became very close to Frenchy Fortune, and Frenchy was—apparently it had a physical problem and lost his license, but he was very active with Weedell Williams in setting the

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world speed records back at that time. So he was very knowledgeable. And now I see in museums, I see a lot written up on Frenchie, and I have pictures of he and I. We played ball out in the field together.

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And then there was no runways and so forth. You just took off anywhere in this big field, it looked like, and into the wind. And the first solo was kind of exciting as it would be, and I thought, "Oh, I'm doing real good.

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My instructor's down there waving at me." He said, "Do three takeoff and landings," and he's waving at me, and I'm thrilled to death. You know, there I am zooming in there and out of there, and he's just waving frantically.

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And I came back in and real proud, expected to be congratulated. He said I was shooting all my landings downwind, so fortunately it wasn't too windy. Beside you and your roommate, were there other girls learning to fly? No, there were only, I'd say, the three of us.

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And when one girl got married, that eliminated her. At that point, did you have any idea of what you were going to do with your ability to fly? Did you have a goal?

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Oh, no. Never dreamed of doing it professionally at thirty-five hours. Did you also have to go to ground school in this CPT program? Yes, we had ground school, because we hadn't written a tag.

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I don't recall too much about the ground school, but oh, definitely we had to go through that. And after you graduated from college, what did you do? I taught school in New Orleans for two years until the WASP came along, and then I also worked at Higgins Shipyard in the office.

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Okay. Could we talk about your teaching school? What grades did you teach? High school.

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Small girl high school, 500 girls. And it was really difficult because I was pretty young, and we were having some women coming back to get their high school diplomas, to get certain positions. So I'd have really young girls, maybe as young as twelve, up through eighteen when

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they're real sophisticated, getting to be seniors, and then maybe one or two women in their twenties and even thirties sometimes. So it was a very diverse group. And why, ninety percent of the girls just loved physical education, they just loved

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it. There was always half a dozen or so that didn't want to put the gym clothes on and gripe about this and gripe about that, and they didn't feel good, so we had cots to lay them on, to lay them on the office till the period was over.

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That pleased them, but it was very rewarding. And we were, in fact, I was teaching—I had a large, very large class this day. The classes ran, they were very large, anywhere from thirty-five to fifty, and once each day I'd have to have a double class.

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And you tried to keep eighty, ninety, ninety-five girls under control for an hour, which was very difficult. These classes were just huge, and fortunately I had a very, very strict principal, and she not only disciplined the younger teachers, she was really tough on the girls, too.

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So it made teaching a lot easier. We were in a school, a huge school at the time, and I had to keep these girls quiet, and yet I had to teach them. And when we go outside maybe to play volleyball or whatever, how are you going to play and

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keep them quiet so the teachers who are in the classrooms wouldn't be disturbed? And of course at that time there was no air conditioning. So in New Orleans in the summertime it was hot and all the windows were open. So now you've got all these people to keep busy, keep active, keep entertained, so to

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speak, to teach, and yet to keep them quiet. So it was difficult, and it was a hard two years. It really was, even though I loved it. And fortunately, this principal was strict and the head of the department was very strict.

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She was an old-time PE teacher that you used to read about, you know, real big into calisthenics and kinesiology and from that aspect of it. So that was a big help too. She was tough on us young teachers, but it also helped us with discipline.

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Kelly: Was this a private school or a public school? Lowry: No, no, public school. There were only 500 girls. Kelly: But it was all girls?

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Lowry: All the girls at that time. And of course now the schools, I guess they're all co-educational now. Do you remember one girl particularly that impressed you? Steele: Yes, I did.

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There was a young girl, she was a contortionist, and she would perform down the French Quarter at night at a nightclub. The lady, Miss Walsh, who was head of the department, really took care of this girl and a lot of responsibility for her.

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She was chaperone when she went down there to perform at night. Then she'd come back and after school was out, she would do her practicing there in the gym. Miss Walsh would work with her, though, so it always seemed so strange.

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She wouldn't do that today, but she was very good at what she did. Have you kept up with any of your students? No, no. No, I really wouldn't know where any of them are, not even the teachers anymore.

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I've even lost track. I tried to keep track pretty much. A couple of the teachers, we'd play tennis together, a good bit, and that was the big thing then, that we could do was tennis on clay courts.

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But no, lost all contact with them, especially having moved up to Ohio and living up there for thirty years, so I lost all touch with them. Kelly: And you taught two years, so what year then? Higgins: I was in the third year.

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Kelly: And why did you change jobs? Higgins: Because the WASP was coming up. Kelly: While you were teaching school, when did you work for Higgins? Higgins: Oh, well, I was doing that last summer, and then I had the phone call, "Would I

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be interested in the WASP?" I never—they didn't say WASP, but I figured—they must have said Women's Air Force Training or something. And I said, "Well, yes," but I didn't even know a thing about it, never even heard

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of it. And, as I say, I figured that Edna Gardner-White had given in the name of Helen and myself as someone from Louisiana, because later years when I was instructing—I was chief flight instructor for so many years, Navy recruiters, Air Force recruiters, but mainly Navy recruiters

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would come and say, "We're trying to get some girls interested in the aviation program. Can you recommend anybody?" And I thought, "Oh, how different from when we struggled to get a little crumbs." They were looking just to kind of get their quota up to snuff, and I thought, "Can you

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imagine learning to fly in the Navy?" find any girls interested. We tried to coach one of the girls in the office and the men worked with her and trained her and everything else, but she didn't pass muster. The interest just wasn't there with the group I was with. So I'm just wondering if it was, if that's

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what happened. Edna had recommended the two of us. Kelly: When you were working for Higgins that summer, what were you doing? Steele: Bookkeeping. Kelly: Bookkeeping. And then you got a call from somebody about—

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I don't recall who it was or anything about it because I had never heard of the WASP. They said the report was such and such and so forth, which I did. I got the physical, the medical. Where did you take your physical?

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In New Orleans. What did your mother and dad think about that? My dad didn't like it because he said, "Oh, he didn't like that at all, being in the military in the Army and he didn't have too much respect for the Army and I don't know if

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that's his background or what, but he said, "There's no place for a lady, for a girl." But he kind of leaned, he broke down. My mother put the sort of pressure on him. Although my mother, who was so much in favor of this, was quite interesting.

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She never was in an airplane and said she would never be in an airplane. And used to say, "Well, if one of us were ill or dying or something, and that was the only way to get there, she'd get an airplane." But that situation never occurred.

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And I think she was so afraid of ocean sickness because she went on a boat trip. We used to go to Honduras sometimes in the summer on business with my dad. And she'd get deathly sick. And that was always a freighter.

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It was not a modern day cruise ship. It was a freighter. And she'd be just so sick and just be in the bunk and never leave the whole trip. And I think she was afraid she would get in an airplane and get sick the same way, but

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never could even get her out of the airport, in fact. Tell me what it was like in Honduras when you would get there. Well, I was pretty small then at the time, and it was all very interesting and exciting. My dad was building a brewery for United Fruit Lines, and we were treated real nice and got

00:32:56.820 - 00:33:22.180

to play with monkeys and just bananas, you could not eat another banana, and avocados. It was just a very great experience. We went to, my brother and I went to a little, I guess it was a missionary type of school, All of it was in the vacation time school up in the mountains, and that was kind of

00:33:22.240 - 00:33:33.460

an exciting thing. But I was only about nine years old at the time. Kelly: And that was just during the summertime? Lowry: Two summers we went down, then he finished the project.

00:33:34.220 - 00:33:50.540

Kelly: Let me ask you about where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor and how did that affect you? Lowry: Yeah, that was interesting because I had one of these huge classes I was talking about and it was in the gym, we were in the basement, where I had my classes, and teaching

00:33:50.660 - 00:34:09.600

him a drill, a marching drill. It was about the only way you could harness anywhere from 75 to 95 girls and keep them all quiet. And teaching him this drill and a radio was on and the news came on on the radio and that's

00:34:09.870 - 00:34:26.740

the first I'd heard about it or we'd heard about it. So tell me how America changed after that. Well, I don't know really. Or how did people change?

00:34:28.000 - 00:34:50.540

I don't know too much about that. I think we were all so patriotic, you know. We just were first of all shocked and then we all wanted to do something. So we started collecting, going to Red Cross classes, nursing, and saving aluminum for

00:34:50.700 - 00:35:06.940

scrap drives. Everybody was just so interested in doing what they could for the war effort that we put our heart and soul in it. Did the war effort affect your immediate family?

00:35:07.760 - 00:35:21.400

Was your brother involved? Lowdermilk Honstein No, he wasn't. He didn't pass the physical. So we really were not personally involved.

00:35:21.430 - 00:35:39.120

Kelly: Once you took your physical for WASP training, then what happened? What was the next step? Well, I think it was the assignment to Romulus. QF. No, before you went in, you took your physical to go into flight training.

00:35:39.310 - 00:35:57.380

A. Oh, flight training back in—oh. QF. Then you were employed. A. Well, yeah, it was kind of interesting because the physician that gave the medical It seemed like an old coot to me at that time.

00:35:59.360 - 00:36:18.120

He said, "Now, you know that you're not supposed to fly during your period, or a week before, or a week after." Oh, so that gave us one month out of the year maybe, sort of thing. And he was adamant about it.

00:36:18.380 - 00:36:38.800

That was just—just women weren't supposed to do those things. So that was as far as that went, in one ear and out the other, naturally. Kelly: Was he an Army doctor? Lowry: No, just an old local doctor there in Lafayette that we were told to go to, I

00:36:38.800 - 00:36:50.560

think. Kelly: How did you get from New Orleans over to Houston to start training? Lowry: That had to be a bus trip. That's the only way I can remember going back and forth would be on a bus.

00:36:51.110 - 00:37:05.420

Kelly: Did your friend report with you? Lowry: No, I didn't know her at all at that time. No, I went over there. Kelly: When you arrived in Houston, walk us through what happened.

00:37:06.780 - 00:37:26.580

Lowry: I don't recall the details. The main thing that stands out in my mind, and I'm sure with all of us, is the fact that they put us up in a motel, a brand new motel that was just built. So the rooms were new, in fact they were just finished as we were moving in.

00:37:27.280 - 00:37:48.460

And I didn't know anyone at the time, so I didn't request any particular roommate. And they put me in with a girl from California that I didn't know at all. And of course later on made good friends, close friends, and then we started swapping around rooms and so forth.

00:37:49.580 - 00:38:07.580

And it was in Houston when Houston was nothing but a so-called cow town. And the motel now they tell would be right in town, but it was way out in the country at that time. And in the front was a liquor store of all things, and here we are housed behind the

00:38:07.720 - 00:38:21.900

liquor store. But in the mornings they'd pick us up, and as the girls always talk about the cow truck, they'd pick us up early in the morning and bring us back in in the evening because our meals were served at the airport, out there Houston hobby.

00:38:23.980 - 00:38:34.580

And— Kelly: How many girls were in training with you in your class? Steele: I don't recall. I'd have to look that up.

00:38:35.000 - 00:38:45.820

But pictures of us doing our calisthenics and so forth. Kelly: So the cattle truck would pick you up and take you out to the airport and then what would happen? Lowry: We'd stay there all day.

00:38:46.640 - 00:39:13.400

We'd maybe go to ground school. We'd go and have breakfast first and then usually do drill, flag raising drill, and ground school while certain times were allotted for different flying groups. What were your expectations, Marian, as far as when you finished the training or how long

00:39:13.440 - 00:39:30.040

it was going to take you and what would happen? I didn't know anything. I just was so in awe of everything, just willing to go along and enjoy and take part and be as active as possible and hoping to get through check rides, of course.

00:39:30.760 - 00:39:45.400

That was always a big thing with everybody. Kelly: Tell me about your flight instructors. Lowry: I didn't realize then, but now I do now, that they were not that proficient or experienced themselves.

00:39:46.840 - 00:40:10.000

And to them it was a big treat to fly these airplanes if they didn't get a chance to fly too much. I always like to tell a story about the first instructor in the PT. We flew the PT with a canopy, and he was showing me how to get in the back seat.

00:40:10.080 - 00:40:31.120

Of course, we had our parachutes, and we'd carry them on our back, put the parachute in the seat, got in the back, and then he stood on the wing and sort of supervised me I had to hook up the straps, so I proceeded to hook up the straps and the legs and the chest and he got in and away we went.

00:40:31.220 - 00:40:48.220

And, of course, they all like to show off a little bit the first time anyhow, because that's the only chance they got to fly the airplanes. So he proceeded to show me snap rolls, and fortunately it was snap rolls and not slow rolls, which probably were terrible.

00:40:48.220 - 00:40:56.520

He probably did them poorly, but I didn't know the difference. I was so excited. And then as he rolled over, I found myself coming out of the seat.

00:40:57.840 - 00:41:08.700

So I put my feet under the pedals and grabbed the yoke, the stick. And what had happened, he'd shown me how to put my straps on a gurr suit,

00:41:09.520 - 00:41:20.900

but I didn't have the seatbelt on, or the shoulder harness. So as he rolled over, I left the seat and with my feet underneath and holding on to the stick, But it came around again and I flopped back down again.

00:41:21.420 - 00:41:32.620

So it was kind of a scary ordeal. So I thought, "Well, if he's going to do it again, I'm going to be ready. They're holding on." But I learned after that you put the seatbelts on, too, and the shoulder harness on, too.

00:41:33.990 - 00:41:42.760

Kelly: Were there already girls there in training when you arrived? Lowry: There was the first class. Kelly: Oh, okay. She's got to change film.

00:41:42.890 - 00:41:50.700

Lowry: Okay. Kelly: Okay. How cool. We're talking about Houston Ground School.

00:41:52.980 - 00:42:12.480

Well Ground School was on the ramp and it was just the same I think all the way through the program, all our various classes. Was your ground school located in the same area where you would report for flying? Right, it was on the ramp there at Houston Hobby at the time.

00:42:15.000 - 00:42:33.140

Talk about the weather in Houston. If I recall, the weather was fairly good. I do not really recall ever being canceled because of weather, although naturally if it was bad, we would go into ground school.

00:42:35.930 - 00:42:55.860

Kelly: Then when you would finish at the end of the afternoon, you would all get in the cattle cars? at the end of the day. We'd get our supper there at the airport even. They had a cafeteria down at the end just for us. We'd march down there, we'd march back, and then go

00:42:55.960 - 00:43:17.760

back to the motel until the next morning. So it worked very nicely. How did you spend the hours that you were not in training when you'd go back to the motel? We pretty much just go to somebody's room and just play around and shoot the breeze.

00:43:19.840 - 00:43:40.220

And of course, before we didn't know each other, and we all felt that we were the stranger. And now in later years, I realize everybody felt the same way. They didn't know anyone either. I just figured all the people from California knew each other and all the people from New

00:43:40.220 - 00:43:59.100

knew each other, but it wasn't that way at all. We were all getting acquainted, and it worked very nicely. Did you make some lasting friendships with any of the girls that you were with at—? Yes, when I got married, the one girl that I roomed with stood for me.

00:44:02.780 - 00:44:24.240

One friend in Ohio, she's still there, she and I used to fly together on some of the But as a whole, now at our reunions is where I get reacquainted with people. Kelly: While you were at Houston, did you have three different stages that you went through?

00:44:24.580 - 00:44:35.160

Steele: Yes, yes, the three. Of course, it would always be the check rides and the washouts and the tears and the excitement of that time. that time.

00:44:35.690 - 00:45:03.740

Do you remember any specific girl who washed out and why? Yes, my very closest friend, Jerry Ulmer, washed out. And then we found out later she was married and she was living in town with her husband who worked on the line and didn't realize at the time that she was pregnant.

00:45:05.280 - 00:45:18.280

And she washed out, and that was kind of a heartbreak. But she and I remained friends for many, many years until her death a couple years ago. And she became president of the 99s, international president. So I stayed close with her.

00:45:19.680 - 00:45:39.080

And as far as Helen here in town, while we were not close in the WASP, we have been close since then, being here together. Levy: Were there any accidents while you were in Houston that you recall? Steele: I do not recall anything.

00:45:41.020 - 00:46:02.460

I guess you would not call it an accident. At night, when you flew at night on your night cross-country—and I was going from Houston to Palacios, I remember, was the first checkpoint—and the instructions were, "If ever you have an engine failure at night, go straight ahead.

00:46:02.800 - 00:46:18.240

Never try to go back to the airport. Turn back." And the BT had an engine failure right after takeoff. And knowing what the swamp looked like south of Houston didn't appeal too much, so I

00:46:18.900 - 00:46:35.420

did turn back and landed on the airport and was thrilled to death that I did this so well and I made such a good landing and so forth. I thought surely I was going to be congratulated, but I wasn't. I was reprimanded for turning back.

00:46:35.500 - 00:46:52.060

I thought, "Oh dear, I go out there and land in the swamp." I don't remember too many accidents in Houston. Kelly: How many hours did you have to fly before you could graduate? Do you remember?

00:46:52.330 - 00:47:02.020

Steele: I don't recall. Kelly: Okay. How long were you in Houston? Steele: I don't even recall what was the training period.

00:47:03.920 - 00:47:15.460

I don't know. I would just estimate four or six months, maybe. Kelly: While you were in Houston, did Jacqueline Cochran visit your unit? Lowry: No, I never did see her down there.

00:47:16.610 - 00:47:37.800

Kelly: Who was in charge of the WASP? Lowry: That's what I'm trying to think of. Ms. Deaton was there in the office, and I just don't recall who was there with her, whoever was the nurse at the time, I think, was also involved.

00:47:39.140 - 00:48:07.380

There was a girl, a young woman, that worked on the ramp that remembers us all very well and speaks of us, in fact, keeps in touch now, that just seemed to know us all personally, but I can't really remember who was in charge. The military people, now they were kind of officiating too at times, but just don't

00:48:07.520 - 00:48:15.320

remember much else. Kelly: Okay. Do you remember who the commanding officer was? Lowry: No.

00:48:16.860 - 00:48:28.740

They asked me a little quick and I could find out very easily. Kelly: Tell me about—there was one class ahead of you. Tell me about that graduation, what you did. Yeah, that was the first class.

00:48:30.200 - 00:48:44.840

And I'm trying to think if they went up to Sweetwater the same time we did for graduation. No, they did not. I can't remember their graduation. Kelly: Does Ellington Field ring a bell?

00:48:44.910 - 00:48:53.880

Steele: That's probably what it was. They probably went to Ellington Field for that. I don't think we went. I don't recall going over there, so I don't think we went for that.

00:48:54.820 - 00:49:08.780

And they were small. very small. Kelly: Right. For your graduation, tell me about that. Lowry: Well, of course, as Class IV, this few that started at Houston, they went up

00:49:08.840 - 00:49:30.380

to Sweetwater. Then Class III, half of them went up to Sweetwater, I believe, and finally we stayed to the end, and they let the Class III graduates, if I recall, take the BTs, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure of that.

00:49:31.080 - 00:49:39.820

And I just remember taking an AT-6 up there. I was alone, enjoyed that. For your class, though, did you have a ceremony at Houston? Oh, no.

00:49:40.040 - 00:49:54.800

It was—no, no, at Sweetwater. You went to Sweetwater. The first class and the second class, they had the ceremony together. So did each of you, the girls who were going to graduate, did you fly an airplane to Sweetwater?

00:49:55.140 - 00:50:14.060

Not all of us did, but I got to fly one. Naturally, there were more girls in airplanes, because by now the third class had taken the BTs up there, so there was nothing left but the AT-6s. And I don't recall what happened to the UC-78s, but I've got to fly one up there

00:50:14.160 - 00:50:24.240

alone and thoroughly enjoyed that. It just felt like it was on a— Do you remember how you transported your clothes, because at that point were you going to leave then from Sweetwater for assignment?

00:50:25.400 - 00:50:33.960

How did you— Steele: I think after Sweetwater, then we were allowed to go home for a while, so yes, we had our clothes. And I don't recall how I got from Sweetwater back to New Orleans.

00:50:34.480 - 00:50:39.600

Kelly: Okay. Tell me about your graduation ceremony. Was Miss Cochran there? Steele: Oh, yes.

00:50:39.640 - 00:50:45.900

Uh-huh. Yes, she pinned on our wings. Kelly: Were you out on the flight line or were you in a hangar? Steele: On the flight line.

00:50:46.220 - 00:51:02.980

It was a beautiful day, and we did our little marching by in white shirt and khaki pants, just like later classes. When did you receive your orders? It must have been—you know, I can't recall that either.

00:51:05.120 - 00:51:18.600

I don't recall if it was before we left Houston. Had to be, I would say. At that point, what options did you have as far as requesting assignment? Well, that's a very interesting thing.

00:51:18.690 - 00:51:35.540

Like I said, we had the four ATC bases, Ferry Command bases, that we could choose from and it was for four preferences. And as I say, my first one was Dallas and I thought, "Well, I'd get by with that with my dad," because I wasn't too far.

00:51:36.580 - 00:52:08.460

And then the second choice, I think I had Long Beach, and the third choice, Detroit, fourth choice Wilmington. And of course I got to Troy, never been out of Louisiana really to speak of except to Texas and a little bit of Mississippi coast. We got to Troy, never had seen snow and was not happy about that. But by contrast another washboat sent to Dallas

00:52:08.460 - 00:52:17.940

And I said, "Well, how did you get to do that?" He said, "Well, I put Dallas on all four choices." And I thought, "Dumb me." Learn the hard way.

00:52:20.560 - 00:52:30.240

What kind of uniform were you wearing when you graduated? Oh, khaki. Khaki shirts. White shirts and khaki pants and flying khaki shirts.

00:52:30.500 - 00:52:42.860

And to fly in, what did you wear? The white shirt and khaki pants. That was after graduation, before graduation, what had you been flying in? Lowdermilk Horton

00:52:42.920 - 00:52:52.580

Cackies. Lowdermilk Horton Cackies, okay. So you got your orders to go to Romulus and then you came to New Orleans for a long period.

00:52:52.580 - 00:53:06.860

Horton Came back home for leave. Lowdermilk Horton Do you remember how your family felt about that when you came? Horton I guess probably as shocked as I was about

00:53:06.860 - 00:53:18.220

going up there, yeah. Were any of your friends being assigned to Romulus with you? No. When you got to Romulus, walk us through what happened.

00:53:19.740 - 00:53:30.780

Where did you report? Oh, okay, that was an interesting thing, because I took the train, and of course, you know, we paid our own expenses to go. And I had a pullman.

00:53:31.000 - 00:53:59.400

My dad made sure I was on all right, and I can remember him tipping the porter to kind to take care of me, watch out for me. And I had a top bunk or something and enjoy that train ride, you know, and just had a delightful trip. Then I got to Detroit train station, hardly never been out of the South. I'm thinking how to get to the base. And somehow

00:53:59.420 - 00:54:16.460

I knew there was a bus you take, so I hid in my little suitcase and got the bus, and then it stopped in Ypsilanti. That was the end of the line. So how on earth do I get to the base here?

00:54:16.680 - 00:54:34.820

I am in Ypsilanti. And Ypsilanti is a very unfriendly town. there are not Hungarian. I can't think which of the European countries, but they're very close-knit and not very

00:54:34.960 - 00:54:48.960

hospitable to strangers. So I thought, "Well, how do I do this?" So I went into the drugstore, the end of the line where there was a drugstore there, and I went in and used the payphone, left my suitcase sitting out on the sidewalk, and called the

00:54:48.840 - 00:55:03.240

the base and gave them all the instructions and what have you. And I'd ask these people first and they wouldn't even talk to me. So they told me at the base, "Well, wait." They'd send somebody there.

00:55:03.240 - 00:55:21.780

It would take about an hour and a half, there'd be somebody there. And sure enough, about an hour and a half later, a staff car came and picked me up and took me to the base. It happened to be a Sunday, Saturday, and he took the drive and knew where the Wasp

00:55:21.800 - 00:55:31.160

Burge was and took me to the barracks in this heavy suitcase, now in a coat, and I'm getting very tired by now. He just put them on the porch. I said, "Can you carry it in for me?"

00:55:31.160 - 00:55:47.980

He says, "Oh, no, ma'am, I'm not allowed in there." So I went in, not a soul to be found in this Burge, no one anywhere. And so I looked around, I looked in the first bedroom, and I saw, well, there are two beds there that are taken.

00:55:48.140 - 00:56:05.760

I looked the other side, two beds there that were taken. And the third one I went to, there were three beds, and only two of them were made up. So oh, that's right, we had to have our own bedding too. So I went in there and made up a bed, realized one of the dressers were empty, and tried

00:56:05.760 - 00:56:14.680

to unpack myself and decided, now what am I going to do? Where do I get something to eat or anything? And if I recall, I didn't have anything to eat that night. Still not a soul in the barracks.

00:56:15.760 - 00:56:27.440

And I didn't ask the young man, I said, "How do you get to the flight line?" He said, "Well, just walk out to the road and occasionally there'll be a little bus goes by and if not, somebody will pick you up. You always get a ride."

00:56:28.360 - 00:56:41.760

So the next morning I went out to the road and sure enough, somebody gave me a ride to the other side of the flight department. I went into this building, this place was deserted. I think it was a Sunday now.

00:56:43.180 - 00:57:00.020

The place was deserted, no one around. I saw a little building that said "Transition." So I went over there and went in, and here's this captain sitting back there, and he said—I said, "Is this the place you come to to get checked out, airplanes?"

00:57:00.020 - 00:57:10.300

He said, "Yes." And he said, "What can I do for you?" And I said, "Well, I'm a WASP, and I was understanding that we had to come over and get checked out on things before we furried them."

00:57:10.300 - 00:57:20.240

He said, "Yeah, okay, you've come to the right place." He said, "My staff's all gone, even the girls have gone into town. They're off today." He said, "I'm the only one here, but I've got a couple airplanes out there if you want

00:57:20.280 - 00:57:35.160

to go ahead and try to fly them." I said, "Yeah." So we went out and supposedly checked out in a Norseman, which I'd never flown, nor a non-Norseman, and the other one was the big Stinson that they used for an ambulance

00:57:35.240 - 00:57:44.320

plane. that and came back in. He said, "You did very well," and signed me off. Now I get a ride to go back to the barracks.

00:57:45.180 - 00:58:01.920

Well, now the story goes when I went in there, I said, "Is this the place where you check out airplanes?" And he said, "Yes," because they were very wolfish-like, he says, and I always joke that was my husband.

00:58:05.100 - 00:58:21.480

So he always liked to tell that story. Then what I didn't know, then the next night, this must be Sunday night now, they all start coming back in. Everybody goes to Detroit or someplace for the weekend, and now the barracks is filling

00:58:21.540 - 00:58:44.460

up again. And what I didn't know at the time, that the WAF, who was in charge, and there was one in charge of each base at the time, did not like what I did, and took this as I was going over her head and grounded me for two weeks.

00:58:46.460 - 00:59:02.200

So everybody is going out on trips and there I am, stuck at the base in Crown School. One thing came out of it that was good, though. I got my military instrument writing out of it for all this Crown School I was going to. Kelly: Do you want to tell us her name?

00:59:02.300 - 00:59:23.400

Reed: She wrote a book, Del Shaw. She wrote a book and she mentions us all in there by name. So we were all named in there. But they came to find out that she did not like this.

00:59:23.660 - 00:59:45.780

The Wafs were really unhappy about us, didn't—resented us, really, and yet they were theoretically the head of the base. So I didn't know I was supposed to go through her, and the fact of the matter is, she wouldn't let any of us go check out in the 86th particularly until all of them had gotten signed off for

00:59:45.800 - 00:59:58.320

her. So I started out on the wrong foot. But in her book she wrote, she mentions me quite a bit. How many WASPs were at that base when you arrived?

01:00:00.100 - 01:00:12.400

Let's see, my class, I'd say there were about ten of us maybe. That's just a guess. And how many WASPs? Three, I believe.

01:00:12.540 - 01:00:35.720

I think there were three of them at the time. What did you do during that two weeks that you were grounded? Went to ground school, went to instrument school, got my military instrument okay, but didn't realize that—and Chris, he never realized that she'd grounded because he

01:00:35.800 - 01:00:54.600

was left. He was head of transition at—well, all over really, down in Texas and California and Dallas and Brownsville and where the other pursuit bases were. So he was on the go pretty much and he had no idea.

01:00:56.220 - 01:01:16.920

And later years when he'd show, he saved all his orders and he showed me where we'd flown that day, but it never got in the records. After that initial meeting with this young man, did you see him, begin to see him more often?

01:01:17.150 - 01:01:27.260

No, I didn't, because he was gone. He was in Long Beach quite a bit of the time and Brownsville. So he knew the WASP. He knew them all very well, going to the different pursuit bases.

01:01:28.520 - 01:01:41.580

And of course, he did a lot of overseas for him. So he was gone. In fact, I think I only saw him once after that. She came in in a P-38, and of course to us that was real glamorous, the P-38.

01:01:42.240 - 01:01:57.420

You know, we'd never get to fly one of those, and none of us did as far as I know. I don't think any of us ever did. Kelly: Do you remember then when you were—after you had served this time grounded, what was the first mission that you did?

01:01:57.970 - 01:02:21.660

And tell us about it. I did a lot of lend-lease flying back and forth to Canada. That was pretty much our mission there, excuse me, in Dallas. First of all, we did a lot of what we called fly-alones, and we'd get to Prairie alone,

01:02:21.820 - 01:02:43.100

and that was always a lot of fun. You're on your own and you go when you want to go, and as soon as the weather's good, way you go, and all you had to do was deliver that airplane as quickly and safely as possible. But then after a while, they put you on a—I don't think they call it a wingman, kind

01:02:43.140 - 01:03:04.140

of a supervisor, and you have to supervise two other people on their trips to make sure they didn't get lost or something. And that was never much fun, so it was never as much fun as fly alone was. And we did a lot of ferrying out of Fort Erie, Ontario, and would take these PT-26s—they

01:03:04.140 - 01:03:17.900

were cabin, no heat, no radio, as we all know—and deliver them all throughout Canada to the bases. And in the summertime, we'd just go cutting across Canada. It was a long, long trip, but it was an exciting trip.

01:03:19.600 - 01:03:38.640

But in the wintertime, with no heat, we couldn't go that way, so we'd have to go all the way down to El Paso, so if you can imagine going from Detroit area, Fort Erie, all the way down to Texas, El Paso, then over to California, and up the California coast to make the deliveries. So it was long.

01:03:38.700 - 01:03:52.960

We were gone quite a while, and they were always a lot of fun. You'd be freezing when you left with long johns and everything else on, and then it would get warm and then you'd start peeling, and you'd start peeling clothes until you down there in south Texas and it was hot.

01:03:53.600 - 01:04:17.940

So by now we were in a minimum until we landed down there. Kelly: Do you remember any one outstanding thing that happened to you on one of those trips? I'll tell the story about when I was head.

01:04:18.060 - 01:04:36.220

I was a super—I forget what they called us, not a wingman, but supervising two other girls and they were doing fine and we were navigating, so I was just kind of coming along, bringing up the rear. As it got warmer, we'd start shedding some of these clothes and then always in the cockpit

01:04:36.420 - 01:04:53.360

there was everybody was sitting up there sunning, getting a tan, going down there because I That was kind of an exciting thing to do when you're freezing up here in Detroit. Then to put the shirt on this particular trip, I took the shirt off and put it behind my head.

01:04:54.580 - 01:05:11.400

And then we're getting to the fields of land there at El Paso, and of course we have no radio, so we'd pretty much have to signal by flying a circle in the field or so forth, or just hoping to get a light or making the approach. And if you didn't get a red light, just come on in."

01:05:11.800 - 01:05:23.400

And this day, the two girls I was following did real fine. They went ahead. And then I went to put on my shirt and couldn't find it. Couldn't reach it, couldn't find it.

01:05:24.360 - 01:05:43.800

And so I tried to catch up with them to try to tell them, "Let me land first," and no way of talking, just sing, "Let me land first and follow me to the end of the field." And of course they were just so happy they made it there and they're on their way, they didn't even give a hoot about me and just went ahead and proceeded with their landings.

01:05:44.440 - 01:06:00.760

And then I'm trying to get my shirt and it's gone, and what has happened, it had blown into the back seat. So here I am with no shirt on and going to land now. When we'd land, as I say, we had no radios, and right away they'd send out a jeep with

01:06:00.820 - 01:06:20.660

a sign on the back, "Follow me." And when I landed, I tried to land as far away from operations as I could, and I proceeded to go down one odd taxiway way off the field, and the old guy driving the Jeep couldn't imagine what the heck I was doing, and I'm trying to signal to him to go away, go away,

01:06:21.640 - 01:06:37.360

so I can get that back seat somehow and get that shirt. And no way, as soon as I stopped, he's up on the wing opening the canopy himself, and I'm holding a map in front of me. So I'm trying to tell him to go away, go away, but it didn't work at all.

01:06:38.240 - 01:07:04.280

So then I finally had him get the shirt, hand it to me, and then go away. So I put the shirt on, and I'm sure they had quite a laugh about that back at the barracks. So I got the shirt on, got myself respectable, and then followed him on in. And that was embarrassing enough to get in, but then he takes the suitcase and he throws

01:07:04.340 - 01:07:23.920

that out, throws it out of the back, the B-4 bag, and then bottles break. So now I've got all kind of stuff broken in my luggage. So it was kind of a hectic trip. But I got myself together again and checked in, and then we proceeded on the next morning.

01:07:25.320 - 01:07:47.460

When you would land at an airbase in Canada, what was the procedure then? I recall just taxi up to operations and we always had our slips that had to be signed, we made the delivery and so forth. And of course they were always so happy to see us.

01:07:48.220 - 01:08:02.340

And the thing they wanted most of all was American cigarettes. Of course, I didn't know anything about buying cigarettes or anything, but they always ask you first thing, "Did they bring any cigarettes?" And I'd say, "No, I didn't."

01:08:02.340 - 01:08:24.420

But to them that was quite a treat. And to see a girl coming in was quite a treat for them, too. But it was all along the lower provinces of Canada and I really got to a lot of places. Got to Regina when the big rodeo was going on.

01:08:24.480 - 01:08:39.800

That's quite a big event with them. And got to Habsburg, British Columbia, which is all the way over in the western corner. And it would take—since these BTs were pretty slow, it would take a long time to make a delivery.

01:08:40.820 - 01:08:55.960

kind of fun, particularly when you were a fly alone and didn't have to watch somebody else on the trip. But that was probably the most fun. Then of course the AT-6s, which they built up in Montreal, they called them AT-16s because

01:08:55.980 - 01:09:04.360

they had canopies and they were yellow. We delivered a lot of those. I delivered a lot of those. They were nice.

01:09:04.820 - 01:09:26.760

story though, all kinds of radios in them, but none of them were operational and we weren't allowed to use them, so we had to do all the dead reckoning and the pilotage. And then getting used to the compass down in between your feet was a little disconcerting too, getting your head down to get your bearings off the compass.

01:09:29.080 - 01:09:41.780

But that was really the interesting part of it. Then it got a little bit later, started flying the multi-engine, and that was not as much fun so to speak. What would you do when the weather was bad?

01:09:45.200 - 01:10:11.040

Pretty much on your own, and since we were not flying IFR, because there were not any radios that were licensed and hooked up, pretty much set it out. But you can't really remember too many weather delays for some reason. I can remember in Taylor, we had—the Army used to use L-5s from Stinson and a little

01:10:11.040 - 01:10:28.120

Taylorcraft from Alliance, and sometimes we'd get stuck in those little airplanes and the fellows would all play poker or something like that to pass the time away, or read or something to that effect. But I don't think there was an awful lot of weather delays for some reason.

01:10:28.620 - 01:10:39.180

Kelly: So after you delivered the airplane, then what did you do? Huddleston: Then we'd get SNAFU to come back, and if there wasn't a SNAFU flight coming in— Kelly: What does SNAFU mean?

01:10:40.870 - 01:10:58.620

Huddleston: Oh, it was a slang for the military airline. Systems all filed up, something to that effect. Our airline, and we always had a pass that we could get an airline flight if there wasn't coming in.

01:10:58.850 - 01:11:11.100

Kelly: Did you have any kind of priority to get back to your base? Hildebrandt: Oh, yes, we all had priority. We could bump people and so forth if we needed to, but I never did run into that too much of the time.

01:11:11.290 - 01:11:29.120

Kelly: Did you have your own personal parachute that you had to bring back? Hildebrandt: Oh, yes, we carried our own parachute with us. Coming back on the Snafu example, since there weren't seats in it, we just threw it on the floor and put our heads on the parachute coming back.

01:11:31.620 - 01:11:46.220

Kelly: And what was the procedure once you got back to your base? Huddleston: The next morning you checked in, or as soon as possible checked in. Usually there was something to go out on right away. We did not get to stay around too much at the base.

01:11:46.920 - 01:12:05.300

Kelly: On these ferrying flights, were Air Force pilots also involved? Huddleston: Oh, yes, definitely, definitely. And then they'd have civilian pilots and Air Force pilots. Of course, the military pilots, they wanted to fly the jets naturally, or the big stuff,

01:12:05.780 - 01:12:21.680

pursuits, not jets, but pursuits. And they'd get in these little planes and they were just really wild in them. They thought they were little toys and they couldn't land them. Just a little bit hard on them, I always thought, you know.

01:12:22.940 - 01:12:44.140

that there'd maybe be 150 small planes, liaisons, be delivered to the Army. They're the ones who used the L-5s out of Stinson. And there'd be, oh, say maybe 80 or 100 of them, and they'd draft all the pilots there at the base to do them.

01:12:45.300 - 01:13:10.680

So there was always a crowd on occasion like that. Who made the decision of which aircraft you would fly? Steele: Well, I guess it was up to the WAF that was in charge. She had quite a bit of authority, I think, whether or not to enter your name as being

01:13:10.720 - 01:13:18.680

available. I get that feeling on that. But always, as soon as we'd come back in, there'd be something to go out on the next day.

01:13:19.400 - 01:13:37.480

wasn't too much time in between. How often did you get checked out on a new type of aircraft? Did you have to go through a period of training, for example, to check out in a twin engine? Oh, yes.

01:13:37.740 - 01:13:59.400

What you do, you fly as co-pilot for a while, and then you go first pilot. The only multi-engine was the DC-2 and DC-3, UC-78s, that I got to fly as first pilot, multi-engine. And then the Lockheed Lodestar, but I never did—that was used pretty much for SNAPU.

01:13:59.850 - 01:14:29.000

I never did get to do that as first pilot with another WASP, though. And those trips were bad because they were at night and then the weather would be bad. the SNAFU trips, headed DC-2 one time, and it was loaded with Navymen, not pilots, going back to some naval base.

01:14:30.880 - 01:14:46.680

They didn't realize, of course, I was up there in the front, and afterwards when I I walked through the aisle, I could see them all, "Oh, it's looking so funny, it looks, you know, ooh." But they didn't mind because they didn't know enough about aviation and that was no

01:14:47.360 - 01:15:14.240

threat to them, you know, if it was a woman flying this thing. Kelly: Did you have an interesting trip to New York one time? Yes, my story with delivering from Canada, delivering the AT-16s, all of them we took down, well most all of them we took down to Newark where they would be wrapped and put

01:15:14.260 - 01:15:32.520

on shipboard and go over to England. And of course here again, no radios hooked up, so we strictly flew by pilotage and did reckoning. In other words, we had our maps, we'd plot our course, try to figure a wind, think the

01:15:32.680 - 01:15:50.020

best altitude to get our times. And the way we'd go independently, and at this particular flight there were three men officers and myself. We all started out together and the weather started to get kind of overcast.

01:15:50.860 - 01:16:04.240

It wasn't looking very good. And the old three of them, I said, "Now what are they going to do?" And I'm up here high and I'm watching them and I think, "I bet they're going to try to go down the river there to Newark."

01:16:04.240 - 01:16:20.240

But that I knew was not good because I knew there were a lot of wires going back and forth across there. In fact, I knew of a corporate plane that hit a wire one time and we were all killed. So I elected to stay high, and the clouds began to get a little thicker and a little

01:16:20.360 - 01:16:38.540

thicker, and next thing I knew I was above an overcast. But I had my chart and I had it figured pretty well, my time and my wind correction, and then got to a point where I thought, "Okay, now this is about time to start my letdown to Newark."

01:16:38.540 - 01:17:10.760

As I started down, I was so taken back because I saw this huge face in the clouds, huge tremendous face in the clouds, that was really very frightening. My first impression, it was a god that was so big and huge. And your first instinct, of course, in Pilein is pull up to the right, which I did just

01:17:10.800 - 01:17:33.640

instinctively and climbed up back on top again and trying to think where in the world was I and got the chart out and tried to figure, you know, why didn't I come out of Van Nuwer and looking at the chart, there's only one little dot, not the size of a pinhead on that chart, the Statue of Liberty.

01:17:35.140 - 01:17:54.340

And I realized that's where I was, that's where I had almost descended. So I tried to get my composure back and get a new heading that would take me to Newark to start another letdown. And as I say, the first impression was when this thing looms up at you, it's just awesome.

01:17:56.320 - 01:18:11.940

Instinctively we peel off to the right, which was a good thing because if I had peeled off to the left, there would have been the torch. So that was really my first time I'd seen the Statue of Liberty. Not the best way to see it.

01:18:13.320 - 01:18:39.300

And then I proceeded to let down, and now it's getting kind of dusk and overcast. And Newark Field was blacktop, it was all black, cinders, black cinders, black runways. It was kind of an awesome-looking airport, but of course it was there and I landed and made my delivery there and thought about what had happened.

01:18:40.780 - 01:18:54.540

But then it was a matter of getting into New York to get to where we could get a flight back to Detroit. So that was—I never really had too many bad experiences, but that was an exciting one.

01:18:56.360 - 01:19:19.420

Was there ever a flight where you were really afraid? Steele: The only thing I can say I was afraid, apprehensive about, was a trip to—well, up to Addis Ababa, British Columbia in the wintertime. And as I say, you had to go down all the way south and go up the West Coast.

01:19:20.980 - 01:19:40.840

that going up the West Coast, starting by San Francisco area, I had never really flown over that area before and was kind of taken back to see the clouds roll in. And they would talk about the fog rolling in like that. It was actually rolling, creeping balls of the stuff rolling in.

01:19:41.460 - 01:19:58.800

And that was kind of intimidating to start with. And I thought, "Gee, it's getting dusk and I've got to get up to my destination and get this airplane down because there's no calling for help. And I was going to land in Seattle for the night, and I get up to where I think it is,

01:19:58.960 - 01:20:08.380

but I can't find Seattle. I can't find the airport. And I'm flying around and flying around. I'm looking at the chart, I think it should be right there, but it isn't.

01:20:09.180 - 01:20:22.280

And it was kind of frightening in a way, thinking, "What am I going to do? Where am I going to land?" And I spotted a little airplane on the horizon and I thought, "Well, maybe he knows where the airport is.

01:20:22.280 - 01:20:35.520

I'll just follow him." And I did. And what I learned is that time the airports were all camouflaged and the runways were painted as though they were roads and there were houses.

01:20:36.880 - 01:20:52.260

There were artificial trees on the airport. There were all kinds of things that you would think it was a regular residential section. And when he landed, headed up for what looked like a road, a street, I stayed right behind him and that was the airport.

01:20:52.940 - 01:21:16.020

So yeah, it was kind of an intimidating thing. There I am, late, alone, out there on the West Coast and no place to go. But then getting up to Abbotsford, British Columbia was always a kind of a treat because It was just a private base for them, and they were always so happy to see somebody come

01:21:16.060 - 01:21:33.580

in or see an airplane come in. And it was just a good experience. Kelly: Were you able to check out in fighters at all? Steele: I did not go down to—they put me pretty much—if you were 5'6", which

01:21:33.460 - 01:21:50.180

I was, then you pretty much got headed towards multi-engine. And below that, then you could pursuit. And I would have gone to pursuit probably earlier at this stage, although Romulus was very, very late getting into pursuit.

01:21:50.600 - 01:22:16.500

And I think it was a lot of it was the WAFs had something to do with that. So we varied pretty much all the time. I got to copilot on, well I flew first pilot on the C-60, but just copilot on the V-24. And we take them up to Canada.

01:22:20.340 - 01:22:32.440

[Crow cawing] I sound like a crow, don't I? I sound like a blue tail, I believe. "Oh, you never fit because you don't know those birds yet."

01:22:32.440 - 01:22:39.520

You know. Okay, are you going to change tapes? Yeah, we'll get it up and then on this one. Okay.

01:22:40.690 - 01:22:51.580

Okay. We're going to switch. How long were you stationed at Romulus? About a year and a half.

01:22:51.860 - 01:23:05.740

Okay. While you were there, did you, what was your social life like? Well, before you answer that question, I was a teacher. Tell me about your social, what you did, social life at Romulus.

01:23:06.840 - 01:23:23.780

Well, we didn't really have a lot of social life. A few of the girls would go to the officers club. I was over there just a little bit and played table tennis. But it was really, we were never at the base long enough to do very much.

01:23:25.240 - 01:23:52.000

And one time we had, oh, must have been 150 of us pilots, all kinds, to deliver a mass of telegraphs out to Kansas to the Army. And we got stuck in Alliance, Ohio, near the factory. And there were quite a few of us, a WASP and civilian pilots and military pilots and everybody

01:23:52.000 - 01:24:12.760

just waiting for the weather so we could get out of the lines. It was an old hotel, a very picturesque old hotel, and we're sitting around there for days and days, and a lot of the fellows are out at the airport, they're playing poker or something, and we go to the movies and try to use up time as much as possible.

01:24:14.030 - 01:24:33.200

And I was in the lobby of the old hotel trying to work on my income tax, and this fellow, civilian pilot came over and said, "Oh, can I help you do that?" And I said, "Well, yeah, because I'm having trouble." Didn't know at the time that later the IRS had been looking for him for years because

01:24:33.280 - 01:24:52.360

his was also incorrect, but he was going to tell me how to make out my income tax. So it was fairly simple, and that's how we got acquainted. And that night, he and my friend Dickerson were going to the movie and asked me if I wanted to go along, which I did.

01:24:52.360 - 01:25:08.140

I went to the movie and after we stopped and had some pie and coffee on the way home. And she finally decided to go up to the room and he proceeded to show me all these airplanes. Well I realized these were airplanes he'd had at one time, but he didn't have any of them now.

01:25:08.680 - 01:25:28.140

But he showed me, "Oh, I'm real impressed about all these airplanes, open cockpits and brand new telegraph," and so forth. So that was my association with him and Charles. And then that was about the only time we were ever together on a trip, but he was hoping

01:25:28.320 - 01:25:45.480

to get—he'd finished Parks College and was hoping to get a position as an officer, and there was a huge cutback. And they said the only things available now were going to be warrant officers, and that didn't appeal to him at all.

01:25:46.280 - 01:26:03.280

So he went back to Columbus, Ohio to—at that time it was Curtis Wright Aviation to test pilot, which he did before. Went back there, but in the meantime while he was going back to check with them, he said, "Well, drive my car for me while I'm gone just to keep it running."

01:26:03.280 - 01:26:17.480

I thought, "Well, glad to have a car, great, uh-huh." But I realized you didn't need to have somebody drive your car if you were going to be gone three or four days, which I did. And that was just come on and very soon after he asked me to get married.

01:26:17.640 - 01:26:31.700

And I said, "Oh, I don't know. I'm not ready to get married." And he said, "Oh, we should because I'm loveland up overseas." And I thought, "Now why do I want to get married to somebody who's going to be overseas?"

01:26:31.720 - 01:26:52.900

But he talked me into it. So we got married there in Dearborn and one of the WASPs, I can't think of his name right now, stood for me and one of the male pilots stood for him. And we got married in Dearborn, which was a Polish section of town, which was very interesting

01:26:53.120 - 01:27:11.300

because people are just not real friendly to service people. In fact, it got to a point where so bad the military were not allowed to go in Detroit because you had to pass through this area of Engster and so forth. And they were beating up military men and so forth.

01:27:11.420 - 01:27:29.220

So from now on we're confined to the base. And we got—I'm digressing here—but we got our marriage done and it was raining, wet snow, terrible day there in that area. And his folks came from Ohio.

01:27:30.370 - 01:27:47.540

We had a nice wedding, but right after that he went back to Columbus, Ohio to test fly in. So I was there for a good little while alone. And then my mother got very ill in New Orleans, and I had a sister-in-law who really made

01:27:47.600 - 01:27:59.900

me feel just terrible that I should be down there with my mother. So I left and went down there to be with her until she recovered. And she did, she recovered. She had lung abscess.

01:28:01.680 - 01:28:19.640

And then I moved back to Columbus, Ohio and picked up my life from there. Tell me about the qualities in this young man that made you fall in love with him over some other person. Well, I guess he was a good talker.

01:28:19.840 - 01:28:44.500

He was a talker. But we really didn't know each other that well or very long, and it's really surprised me because I had been not engaged but semi-engaged to a young man that I went through all through college with, but he wanted to get married as soon as we graduated and I couldn't see

01:28:44.400 - 01:29:08.400

you know, just finishing four years of school and getting married right away. So we saw it apart then and he went on to be dean at the University of Arkansas—no, of Arizona, I believe—in animal husbandry. And I was just too taken back by flying, anything to keep flying.

01:29:08.640 - 01:29:39.920

Let me ask you this, Marianne. When you married and you said he went back to Ohio and you were lonely, why didn't you resign since you had that option? Well, that was not brought up at the time. Of course, that would have suited him just fine, but I really had an awful lot of pressure at that time with my mother being so ill and

01:29:40.320 - 01:30:01.720

me being the only girl. That was a big thing, but it was not too long after that, of course, we were disbanded and I went to Ohio. What did you have to do in order to be able to resign to go and help your mother? I don't recall too much right now.

01:30:02.080 - 01:30:18.840

I told my sister-in-law, who was very aggressive, and she was from Shreveport, Louisiana, and I said, "I don't think I can get out. I can probably get a leave and come down." And she said, "My father's a congressman, and he can get you out."

01:30:18.840 - 01:30:35.220

So I was pressured from all sides at that stage. And so I don't recall any problems with it when I said the reason, or something of that nature. Did you feel any resentment from the WAFs or the other WASPs?

01:30:36.520 - 01:30:56.360

Oh, no, no. We were such a—I won't say diverse group, but we were gone all the time. As soon as we'd come back in from a trip, they'd be out there waiting, and sometimes be really hard trouble just getting your laundry done before you went out again. So up until

01:30:56.440 - 01:31:24.060

the very end, we moved a lot. We were on the go a lot. Yeah. We had to—you say about the otherwise, but we had to—when we ferried, the first time you went, you went as a wingman, I guess you'd call it, and then there'd be somebody in a supervisory capacity to make sure you stayed on course and got your delivery done properly, and one trip of that usually.

01:31:24.900 - 01:31:42.320

Then you became a fly alone, and of course this was the fun part because you just flew all over and you were by yourself and did your own thing. But that didn't last too long because then you had to become a leader. That was kind of boring because you're just sitting there watching somebody else and hoping

01:31:42.400 - 01:32:03.400

they stay on course because there's not much you can do about it because you can't communicate with them except some hand signals and that was a little bit more demanding and there was one girl that she was getting me lost and I was having a little trouble so I went on ahead of her and I gave her motion to

01:32:04.620 - 01:32:26.900

you know follow me what she did and she presented that for years and years afterwards and I think about it now I think she's finally forgiven me for that But it was a kind of responsibility if you didn't really know where that person was or which direction they were going in and you couldn't communicate with them.

01:32:28.440 - 01:32:48.580

I had a similar thing happen with my husband. I came down that same trip I was talking about out of Alliance. I picked up a flu bug somewhere and I got just deathly sick and we were in Columbus, Ohio, finally got a break in the weather to leave, and the whole group, oh, it looked

01:32:48.680 - 01:33:01.520

like blackbirds, there were so many of them leaving. And I said, "I cannot fly. I just, I could feel I had fever and I was sick." And I thought, "Well, I hate to do it, but I'm going to have to stay behind and stay

01:33:01.640 - 01:33:13.520

overnight and hope in the morning I'll feel better and can get going." And he stayed behind and he said, "Come on, you can just follow me." And I said, "I don't think I can." And he said, "Yeah, just follow me.

01:33:13.620 - 01:33:27.400

It's off my wing there." And I let him talk me into it, and he got miserably lost. I was used to flying these little airplanes without radios, and I thought, "Oh, what a trip."

01:33:27.480 - 01:33:58.640

So we got to St. Louis, but it was late and it was dark, but by the next day I felt better. What part do you think the WASP played as far as the war effort? What do you think the WASP accomplished? Steele: Oh, I think quite a bit in this delivery of aircraft, because to the men who were just

01:33:58.940 - 01:34:33.240

coming out of flight school, this was a very menial job, and their aspirations were much higher like going to Europe or Asia or in combat or flying pursuits in action type thing. And the women were just kind of filling in so to speak. I got into multi-engine although I'd like to have been in pursuit a little more but

01:34:33.120 - 01:34:50.380

because I was 5'6" and you had to be 5'6" to go into multi-engine. Those of us that were a little taller were right away just kind of pushed into that end of it. And later on they were given a chance then to get down to pursuit, but I was already

01:34:50.460 - 01:35:19.500

locked in where I was and flying SNAPU, flying UC-78s and mainly the C-60s. And then it would be nighttime and weather, and it got to be difficult then. It wasn't fun like the days of Furry Inn. Kelly: After you resigned and then you came back up to Ohio to live, what did you do with

01:35:19.560 - 01:35:39.880

your time then? I pretty much just always seemed to have an airplane and finally got into flight instructing, which I put off. I always thought that would be kind of boring, but then I used to keep—it wasn't, however.

01:35:40.600 - 01:35:54.900

And then I kept active with the races, the Powderpuff Derby and the international race. And I always had a little airplane and did very well in those races, particularly international ones. And—

01:35:54.900 - 01:36:15.360

Kelly: Explain to me what one race would entail. Steele: Being in Ohio, the most convenient one was the international—or called All Women's International Air Race or Angel Derby. And the way they got that name, it sounded kind of frivolous, and the girls fought it

01:36:15.160 - 01:36:28.960

for a while, but after a while, since it was catchy and it got them publicity, they needed desperately to get sponsors. They went along with it, but newspaper, the Mexican newspapers were the ones that coined that Angel Derby.

01:36:30.460 - 01:36:52.000

And that was real interesting because I always had a small airplane, usually an old airplane, and got to fly quite a bit. Well Canada was very often the start, well that was home territory, but then fly to Mexico, Nicaragua, Bahamas quite a bit, Cuba a couple of times.

01:36:53.960 - 01:37:09.220

And that was the fun thing to go to these places in little airplanes. It was very competitive. Were you racing against time? Well racing against each other and we each had our handicap, right, right, time, and

01:37:09.220 - 01:37:27.620

pot-a-puff derbys and that was fun. They got to be though, they got to be very expensive and of course the California people seemed to get more support than we did. But they were very competitive and it was a lot of fun.

01:37:28.160 - 01:37:48.000

Did you have to solicit your own support or did the organization help? Oh no, you did your own and you tried to get sponsors and as much as you could you got sponsorship and of course that always put the pressure on you because you've got to do good for the sponsor. You've got to convince them first that you're going to win and maybe

01:37:48.100 - 01:38:07.400

there'd be 95 or close to 100 in the Powder Bowl Derby and there can't be but one winner but you have to kind of convince them that you're going to be up there at least in the top five or so. Does any one woman stand out in your mind that you competed against?

01:38:08.710 - 01:38:26.760

Steele No, I don't think so. Flying the International, which I enjoyed flying, because as I say going to these other countries, Edna Gardner White was always very competitive. And Edna would have loved to have been in a WASP, but she was just a little bit too

01:38:27.060 - 01:38:43.020

old. I figured that she was the one that recommended me and Helen, too, I imagine, since we both knew her, because we had no connection with California flying or women out there or even New England area.

01:38:44.780 - 01:38:58.880

So yeah, these races got very competitive. Kelly: Tell me about your most memorable race. Well, probably the most memorable one is the one I won down to from Windsor, Ontario, down to Havana, Cuba.

01:39:01.860 - 01:39:22.820

And I had a little Luscombe and it was just a little 90-horsepower fuel injection engine in it. And at that time, fuel injection was kind of new to little airplanes. And the boys that set the nozzles for me didn't know what they were doing really, so it was

01:39:22.880 - 01:39:40.060

kind of a touch-and-go thing with flying it with them, particularly that ninety-mile hop from Key West over there to Havana. But the airplane performed real well. It didn't have very good gas mileage and had to land one time at a military field for

01:39:40.180 - 01:39:57.800

fuel and they said, "We only have high-octane fuel. We don't have anything that we can do for you." So I said, "Well, I can't go on without fuel." And they put me in the Jeep and we took two five-gallon cans and went down to the filling

01:39:57.900 - 01:40:21.100

station and put automobile gas in it for me to get to the next stop. So the airplane performed real well on that little bit of automobile gas and then made the trip down and won that year. That time Batista was in power and things were getting kind of shaky for him.

01:40:23.160 - 01:40:38.000

So they had a reception for us in the palace, but wouldn't say what time or anything else. And we were waiting a day, a day and a half, so I was hot. So I decided I like to swim a lot. I decided, well, I'll go in the pool and swim.

01:40:38.640 - 01:40:47.860

And I just had a new perm. We didn't have dryers then, of course. New perms. And they called me and said, "Batista will meet you in thirty minutes."

01:40:48.340 - 01:41:00.320

Meet all the ladies. Here I am in a swimming pool with wet hair, new perm. And I made it there. And I'll never forgive the other girls because the pictures, all the pictures taken at the

01:41:00.180 - 01:41:27.140

Palace and with Batista, I've got two bobby pins in the side of my hair and nobody told me to take them out. But it was very nice. We shipped champagne with him and he appeared and disappeared out of the wall and they had big mirrors all around. The whole room was mirrors and the mirror opened and there was a door and that's where he came out of, a

01:41:27.000 - 01:41:47.680

big mirror. And even at the banquet, which was a big deal, he was not there. They had sent all the other government officials. What year was this married? Well, let's see, the year I won I think was 1951, was it? And then the next year I went

01:41:47.760 - 01:42:11.380

back and I came in second that year. But that year was really bad because Castro was now coming in and we had checkpoint, the cars taking us in from the airport. We couldn't land at the main airport, we had to land at a small airport and the cars taking us in were checkpoint every, seemed like, every little town we came to.

01:42:15.480 - 01:42:42.760

And at the banquet, which was quite an elaborate thing, there were no Cuban women there, it big shots, the big table here, and I'd see these beautiful women outside the glass looking in with their faces against the glass. And one man told me that was his wife, and this was his wife. They weren't allowed to come to functions. It was only the men would come

01:42:42.760 - 01:43:01.100

to functions like that. And there was a huge big trophy, and it was a beautiful big thing, but I couldn't get it in my little Luscombe. I did get a couple of smaller trophies in without any problem, but I couldn't get that one. And they said they were going to ship it. Well, of course, in the meantime, Castro came in. I never did—I have pictures

01:43:01.200 - 01:43:16.040

of it, but I never did see the trophy. But it was huge. It was always a big joke, "What are you going to do? Put it out in the yard? Make a fountain out of it?" or what have you. It was so big. Kelly: At this big banquet, did you dance afterwards?

01:43:16.480 - 01:43:29.260

Lowry: No. No. Kelly: Did they have entertainment? No, I don't think they did. They took us to—well, they took us to what I guess was a nightclub sort of thing, but

01:43:29.300 - 01:43:46.320

it was outdoors and they had screen netting, of course, over the top to keep thieves and bugs and everything from coming down on you. So we did go to places like that afterwards, but it was different. And it was a different world.

01:43:48.040 - 01:44:04.200

And the hotel was very nice and very elaborate that we stayed at. So they treated us well. Coming back the second time, though, a close friend, her husband had gotten a meninge and she had two friends.

01:44:04.250 - 01:44:18.240

She had a friend with a blind as copilot went along on the race. And they had a fatality. And the girl, my closest friend, was killed, and the other one was in the hospital with a broken arm.

01:44:19.160 - 01:44:38.340

And that kind of spoiled the second trip down there, and that was the last time going there. Then we started going more to Nicaragua and Mexico, all through Mexico, and of course the Bahamas quite a bit. So that was always an interesting race, and usually started in Canada.

01:44:38.610 - 01:45:03.060

Kelly: Who sponsored these trips? There was a bunch of women, they called themselves, what they did call it, International Air Race Incorporated or something, and that's what I say, that's when the Mexicans started calling them the Angel Derby and the other one the Powderpuff Derby, that was newsmen

01:45:03.140 - 01:45:15.680

that did that too. And I say it seemed so frivolous at first, but it got the necessary publicity which you needed if you had sponsors and so forth. I know you belonged to the 99s.

01:45:15.720 - 01:45:39.620

Could you tell us when you joined the 99s and what kind of organization that was? Yeah, I joined the 99s as soon as I went to Columbus because this friend who was later killed, Marge Miller, her husband was chief test pilot there at North American Aviation and Curtis Wright, and she was very anxious for me to come to Columbus to join the 99s

01:45:39.620 - 01:45:57.000

and be someone for her to fly with and so forth. And oh, she was so taken back by it, she just thought the world of it. And it was through her that I joined the 99s. And I was also exposed to it down in Lafayette, Louisiana.

01:45:57.640 - 01:46:13.100

Fannie Leon Packer, one of the early, early women in aviation, was down there when I was just a student. But she was so interested in the 99s and wanted us girls to join, which I didn't at the time.

01:46:15.300 - 01:46:32.340

But she was one. I look in histories now and I see that she was very active in the early days of the 99s. So I still remain a member. Did you ever actively participate in the organizational staff?

01:46:34.660 - 01:46:59.600

And Edna Gardner White was president. She had me take over—it wasn't air race competition sort of a thing, but flying activity part of the committee. Kelly: And how long did you live in Columbus then?

01:47:02.360 - 01:47:24.000

years, thirty years in Columbus, and then came back to Louisiana. What made you decide to come back to Louisiana? Because my second husband, J.D., was, when he came up there, of course now I'm widowed and all, and he came up pursuing me and flew up from Laredo, Texas, and I said, "I don't

01:47:24.020 - 01:47:40.960

even know where Laredo is," so I had to get out a map, find out where Laredo was, and flying for an oil man. So I was just happy to get back south again, although I didn't mean to go that far south.

01:47:41.780 - 01:47:53.780

So we went to Laredo, and then the cattle man also had oil wells up in Tyler, Texas, so we moved up to Tyler for a short time.

01:47:54.760 - 01:48:06.620

And then he took a job in Louisiana flying. So I'm back in Louisiana, back home again. What year did you get married that second time? 26 years ago.

01:48:07.300 - 01:48:13.460

Okay. And then while you were married him, what was his name? Jack. Jack.

01:48:13.480 - 01:48:25.320

Jack Daniel Brown, so he was called J.D. And in the service everybody would call him J.D. Did you continue to fly when you came back to Louisiana? Oh yes, uh-huh.

01:48:26.060 - 01:48:52.940

and usually had a small airplane and then was asked to be a pilot examiner and I was a pilot examiner for twenty years and gave that up. I didn't give it up, I was kind of pressured to give it up when I hit seventy-five. I didn't realize what the deal was but now I started counting and I said, "Oh."

01:48:52.940 - 01:49:04.360

So the very—well, I thought it was being a woman. So then I started—oh, well. Kelly: As a flight examiner, who were you working for? Steele: The FAA.

01:49:04.450 - 01:49:33.240

Kelly: FAA. Steele: And I had people from Louisiana, from Texas, from Arkansas, Mississippi, and was—I Because I don't think I was quite as intimidating, and yet you had to be—you had to be pretty much do it by the book or you're in trouble with the FAA.

01:49:34.780 - 01:49:51.860

So I got many letters would come back and say, you know, "Thanks for getting them over the hurdle," you know. So I enjoyed it very much. in examining who were these people that you were giving flight exams to and walk us through

01:49:52.440 - 01:50:13.820

what you would do. Stenstrom>> Well, we had, of course, any ratings from private pilot on through airline transport pilot, single and multi-engine, and a lot of them were—first of all, the schools over in Thibodeau—we had one at the university over there, Nichols—I used to give their

01:50:13.640 - 01:50:45.240

flight tests were them. And then a lot of people would come out of Baton Rouge over here because there wasn't that many pilots right here in Hammond. And then I started down in Patterson. We lived in Patterson. And that's kind of a seat of aviation for Louisiana. Patterson was very active, they have a large museum. So a person would get

01:50:45.280 - 01:51:03.640

all their training by the instructor and then be recommended after taking a written. And it was getting very stringent, it was difficult for them to do, but it was necessary. Kelly: Would you be flying in their airplanes? Oh yes, they provided the airplane.

01:51:04.200 - 01:51:21.420

What would you do if they wanted to be flight checked in an airplane that you had never flown? I couldn't do that, but there really wasn't too many airplanes that I hadn't flown. Were there other female flight examiners?

01:51:21.500 - 01:51:37.760

Not in the state, no. That must have been really neat. It was, it was enjoyable because of course people would come just so, as I can imagine, like we flail in the wasp, you know, about getting a flight check.

01:51:38.520 - 01:52:03.760

But today it's so hard, they have so much to do. The written exam is difficult, the oral exam is kind of strung out, and the flight. So I'd be with them at least three or four hours, and it was hard for them, it really Of all the people you've examined, have some of them gone on to achieve in aviation?

01:52:04.320 - 01:52:18.120

Oh yes, many of them. Many of them, airlines, military, oh yes, many of them. Corporate flying. Does any one stand out in your mind that you have kept in contact with?

01:52:19.300 - 01:52:37.380

No, I got to when I was in Ohio, Columbus, I was chief pilot, chief flight instructor at a big flight school, big flight school, and the young instructors coming up were always kind of had to be raised themselves. I hear from them quite a bit.

01:52:38.130 - 01:52:55.440

That was always a nice relationship. And a lot of the young men, particularly from universities, they were going into the military, hoping to get into the military. So I would hear from them quite frequently and then of course there would be a lot of

01:52:55.440 - 01:53:27.080

corporate pilots and today they've gone up so high and have such good jobs it's just real rewarding. Kelly: During the time you were flight testing, did you have some little ones of your own? Yes, I had the two—the children now are getting grown pretty much on their own now.

01:53:28.260 - 01:53:46.480

When they were little, I always had a small airplane of some kind, you know, and to get ready for the races, they would help wax the airplane, polish it, and do little things like that to help. And of course it's always hard, as with most gals with a family, it's hard getting

01:53:46.620 - 01:54:02.200

away and you'd bake all the casseroles and get everything done so they'd have something to eat the whole time and you come back and see none of it's been touched. They'd been eating out of the fast food. But yeah, that took a little planning.

01:54:03.270 - 01:54:18.920

When did you have your first son? When? I have to stop and think. He's fifty-four, so it's a while back, and then the second one's fifty.

01:54:23.420 - 01:54:32.560

Kelly: At this point, you have how many sons? Lowry: I have just the two boys. Kelly: Two boys. Did either of them have the love of flying that you had?

01:54:32.830 - 01:54:58.240

Lowry: Yes, both of them did. The younger one was hoping—it was during draft time—and he was hoping to get into the Army flying, and the recruiters were very much—were very active trying to get recruits. And the older one, he was a little bit farsighted and knew he'd have trouble with the Air

01:54:58.280 - 01:55:13.740

Force, but the recruiter told him, "But you can get into helicopters." And of course, this was not true. He couldn't get in the helicopters either. So he was in service about three or four years.

01:55:14.280 - 01:55:46.520

And the younger one, who got his private ticket with me on his own, he didn't pay for his instructor but he paid for the rental of the airplane, he got his ticket and went in a enlist anyhow. But he went to Craig Air Force Base over Mississippi and they're finishing up and since he'd been ROTC they're finishing up and all of a sudden

01:55:46.910 - 01:56:11.200

they have the cutback on bases and they closed down the base. So now they were all would have their commission of course but they'd be sent to a non-flying position or they could get relieved but and I'd forgotten this but they'd be on call indefinitely the rest of their lives so and I had really forgotten that

01:56:11.220 - 01:56:39.820

and he was kind of later kind of semi drafted so they shut down the base when he was just about to finish and he figured it was just too expensive to pursue aviation on his own. So he stopped flying, except to fly with me sometimes. Kelly: When you were flight testing, was there ever a time that anything unusual happened?

01:56:41.880 - 01:57:05.340

Lowry: No, I don't think so. The difficult part was when someone was not passing the It was always very difficult. You'd see the tears well up and it was difficult. And I did have a very, very sad thing.

01:57:05.380 - 01:57:21.960

A young man had come over on Saturday and took his flight test with me. He did a beautiful, magnificent job, was well informed, had studied, and it was just a delight. He went home and I kept telling him, I said, "You better get out of here. There was a thunderstorm out there about to come.

01:57:22.080 - 01:57:37.160

He wanted to talk because they all wanted to talk afterwards. They went home, and the next day he took his mother for a ride in an airplane. He rented an airplane and took his—I don't think he'd taken his girlfriend yet. I think he took his father next.

01:57:37.960 - 01:57:58.200

And they say his father was a very big man, and the engine quit on the airplane, and he He landed in—there are a lot of oil refineries around the airport—he landed somewhere near the oil refineries and the tower didn't even see him. And he crashed and he and the father were both killed.

01:57:59.620 - 01:58:18.460

And it's thought of the father was a big man, too big for this small airplane, and he may have panicked when the airplane quit and grabbed the controller. We don't know what happened, but here's this delightful man and this happened the next day when his mother and his fiancée are there at the airport.

01:58:19.100 - 01:58:32.660

So that was the saddest thing, I think. Kelly: Tell me what attracted you to John? Is that your second husband? Steele: Oh, Jack?

01:58:33.420 - 01:58:51.100

Well, he was a little bit older than me, not really, about seven years older than me. But he'd come into the band—of course, he was the one that signed me off the first time and got me in trouble with my supervisor, Del Shaw. Unknowingly, he never knew it until recent years when we were going through some of his

01:58:51.140 - 01:59:01.600

old orders. He saved his orders, even though that yellow paper was terrible. And he showed that he had signed me off these two airplanes. I said, "It's not in my records.

01:59:02.400 - 01:59:25.540

She just destroyed them." So he'd come back one day and he told me, he said at the time he'd been married and he told me he was divorced and I didn't pay any attention because I wasn't going to fool around with any man that was other than business type thing that was ever married, my goodness.

01:59:28.740 - 01:59:47.240

Then he came back with a P-38 one time and I was walking across the ramp and he comes alongside me going, revving both engines back and forth, you know, and going back and miswaved. Then I never saw him again for 30 years, 25 years?

01:59:47.860 - 01:59:57.800

25 years anyhow. And he got a roster, we had a roster was put out for the third ferrying group. And he saw my name in it and he called one time

01:59:58.040 - 02:00:08.500

and he just said, "How are you?" and so forth. And I told him that I was a widow now and so forth or something like that. And he said, "I'm going to come up and see you."

02:00:09.080 - 02:00:24.000

So he got permission to take the airplane, the man he flew for, and came up there to see me. And it was kind of funny because he came in Western gear. He flew for this man that was a rancher and an oil man.

02:00:24.120 - 02:00:42.920

The ranches were down in Laredo, Shirley Cattle, and then the oil wells were up in Tyler. And he always wore a Western gear and boots and a big hat. And when he walked into my office, the young flight instructors were there and I was out

02:00:43.000 - 02:01:01.420

flying and he came in dressed in this gear. Well, you can imagine the comments and the talk with them going on. So he was waiting for me so they talked about the cowboy, "You cowboy friends here." So he had—then I'd seen him again after all those years.

02:01:02.500 - 02:01:16.840

So we started—he started calling at two o'clock in the morning, two-thirty, and I said, "I've got to get up at seven. Goodbye," sort of thing. But then we finally got married and moved down to Laredo.

02:01:18.900 - 02:01:36.180

And down in Laredo, were you on a ranch? We lived in town. We had a condo in town, but the man, he flew for the ranch and would fly in the ranch. Kelly: And now in your life, what do you do?

02:01:37.300 - 02:01:58.040

Do you have volunteer things that you do now? Steele: Probably pretty much the only thing that I really get involved with are church activities. and the rest of it is just watching all my friends get broken bones, trying to be careful

02:01:58.080 - 02:02:15.900

climbing up on chairs and so forth, and getting the leaves out of the gutters and things like that. Tell us what you do to help in the church. Well we have, I have a group, I guess you call it a hospitality group maybe, but when

02:02:15.900 - 02:02:32.160

When there's a funeral, a death of one of the members, we'll provide, depending on the time of day, the reception for them, whether it be lunch or brunch type that time of day or lunch afterwards. And that's it.

02:02:32.240 - 02:02:49.100

And we've got so many charity affairs that you do in the church, you know, raise money. There's always so many funds to be raised for. But that's about all, and I do have some things here from the animal shelter. I usually try to work with them.

02:02:50.900 - 02:03:09.520

What's the name of this church that you work with? Grace Memorial Church, Grace Memorial Episcopal Church. And we just had a congressman die, and of course he had a large funeral, a lot of people. But I don't do as much probably as I should do.

02:03:10.380 - 02:03:45.380

want to tell us about your sons now, what they're doing? The one in Columbus, Ohio, he works for a wholesale automobile auction house. And he's gone to where he just works a few days a week because he's real big into trap shooting and so forth. And that's his big hobby and he goes to meets all over. And the other one

02:03:45.460 - 02:04:11.780

now is in Baltimore, Maryland, just sort of in between jobs. He was with Raytheon and Raytheon lost their contracts with NASA. So that was his last project was space exploration. So right now he's sort of in between jobs, and like he says, semi-retired, so the right thing comes along.

02:04:12.680 - 02:04:18.740

Kelly: Do you have grandchildren? Lowry: Only two. The boy in Ohio has a girl— Kelly: Tell us about them.

02:04:18.880 - 02:04:39.440

Lowry: Well, the boy in Ohio has a girl, and she now has a little girl, so great-grandmother on that score. And then the one in Baltimore, his son is just a freshman in college and had an interview, was scheduled for an interview with the Air Force and dad was thrilled to death.

02:04:40.370 - 02:04:57.520

And I was kind of happy about it. But when he read the brochure and said the first year you cannot have a radio. I wanted to ask you what you do with the animal shelter in as much as I see a little change. I don't do that much just to contribute, to help contribute.

02:04:59.290 - 02:05:15.100

Oh, I could never stand to work at an animal shelter. I'd bring them all home. Imagine looking back over the WASP and the experiences that you had. What do you think the legacy of the WASP will be?

02:05:19.600 - 02:05:45.460

I probably shouldn't be saying this because I feel we didn't do that much. We were given, we received I think more than we gave. And I look at some of these nurses, what they have done. It's light related and it's loud if there's plenty of light.

02:05:45.520 - 02:06:21.780

And at night you don't hear it hardly, it's so soft. Oh the nurses, when you read about what they did in the Pacific, unreal. I just admire them so much because—or any of those islands in the Pacific. J.D., my husband, had a chance to go to Kwajalein—well, I guess my son, not my husband—to go to

02:06:21.840 - 02:06:41.260

Kwajalein. And J.D. used to, of course, he flew all over the world in the ATC, and he said, "Kwajalein." I won't really repeat what he said about it, but the brochure sounded so great because he's scuba diving and the coral is supposed to be beautiful and this and that.

02:06:41.360 - 02:06:56.720

And my grandson was ready to go any day now. And he says, "You don't want to go there. You don't want to go there." And fortunately, and unfortunately, unfortunately, Raytheon lost their contract with the satellite

02:06:57.180 - 02:07:14.460

tracking system there, so they didn't get over to Kwajalein. But he knew all those Pacific islands, knew Japan, brought the wounded soldiers back from Japan. So he really knew the whole world because he flew all over the world quite a bit in

02:07:14.460 - 02:07:30.420

the military. What do you hope your legacy will be? I don't think of myself as being a legend. I'm just plain manila.

02:07:31.820 - 02:07:47.360

As you look back over your entire life, what is the thing that you are most proud of that you have done? I guess my career in aviation. Anything specific?

02:07:51.120 - 02:08:16.300

No, I did like examining, working with not necessarily young pilots, even had pilots it's older than myself occasionally, but getting to know people and it's one-on-one experience and I suppose I enjoyed that most of all. And the WASP if we could go back and do that over again.

02:08:17.920 - 02:08:31.600

In looking back, do you think that the WASP gave you that opportunity? Do you think that was contributing to that opportunity to be able to be a flight examiner, for example? Oh, yes, definitely.

02:08:32.160 - 02:08:45.980

Flying corporate, I flew corporate. I was chief flight instructor for a big school and chief pilot for a while, but it was just too much for me to do all the work. Oh, definitely.

02:08:46.720 - 02:09:09.960

Could I ask you, what is your opinion of Jacqueline Cochran? Well, of course, I have just thought the world over because there would have been no chance for me to do anything. I'd still be teaching school or working in the office or something else, definitely

02:09:10.120 - 02:09:33.500

not be in the flying career if it wasn't for the WASP. So I'm very grateful. I know the men, both husbands being pilots, they thought of her with mixed relations. But I just felt that she did so much for me, for all of us.

02:09:34.720 - 02:09:57.840

If you could say something to your grandchildren or to your great-grandchildren or to children that you do not know or will never know, say 25, 50 years from now, when they are viewing this film and listening to you, what would you like to say to them that might encourage them to achieve?

02:10:00.040 - 02:10:20.120

There's so many opportunities out there for women now, for girls. Gee, the military is wide open to them, what they can do, all these great things. And maybe they're not destined for all this space politics and so forth. To me, that's kind of a bore.

02:10:22.840 - 02:10:42.640

But there's so much out there, they can do most anything they want to if they just set their mind to it. And I think they are more, girls are more determined now. And if they just don't get disrupted about all this pop culture that they're subjected

02:10:42.800 - 02:11:02.440

to now, there are things that are more lasting out there. Kelly: Do you want to ask her about the— Sartre, other men— Smith: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The instructors were all men. I was older than they were.

02:11:04.370 - 02:11:24.140

I had a lot more experience than they did. Come on, they were just getting out of school, flight school, you know, and eager to learn anything. Kelly: So how do you handle that? No, no problem, because you're older and you've got the background.

02:11:25.340 - 02:11:50.720

Oh no, I've got so many from the University over at Thibodeau, Louisiana. They had a real good flight school, flight program, and there'd be letters from them. First of all, they want recommendations, want you to write a recommendation for them, and would do that and always letters coming back, "Thank you for helping," and so forth.

02:11:52.090 - 02:12:01.200

Oh, yeah. Is there anything that we have left out? Is that right? I was going to say, I'm glad you parked in the garage.

02:12:03.580 - 02:12:10.140

She's got both her vehicles. What was the best plane you ever flew? The best plane? Probably would be one of my own.

02:12:10.320 - 02:12:17.660

Any one of my own, yeah. Comanche, probably. Comanche, yeah. Oh, I love that Comanche.

02:12:20.360 - 02:12:29.620

- I hope this has been a good experience. You've brightened our day. - Well, you all are so delightful 'cause I get bored with me, that's for sure.

02:12:29.780 - 02:12:41.700

- Oh, no. - I spent an hour last night dragging out pictures and stuff, I said, "They're gonna wanna see stuff, pictures and of course I'm glad I didn't go any farther than I did.

02:12:44.060 - 02:13:08.600

Oh, I thought, oh, impression. My mother decided she always wanted to be a beauty operator. She liked to make big fancy hats and things like that. And she had to sneak out because my dad would not, you know, the old, "Mama don't work." She'd sneak out and go to Marinella the beauty school and they need victims.

02:13:10.320 - 02:13:28.160

And she talked me into getting a perm. When they put, did you ever see the pictures? Put things on your hair like that, here I am suffering with those things, oh yeah. Kelly: They had never done that.

02:13:29.100 - 02:13:41.640

So anyhow, they used to be pretty curly, kinky. So anyhow, that was her thing. "Girl, why don't you stay out of there for a while?" Oops, she got so mad when she saw the pictures of me with my hair all...

02:13:41.920 - 02:13:50.320

But they didn't tell us when he was going to be there. They didn't say, "He'll meet you sometime." Sometimes you meet him. When we got there, we thought we'd see him.

02:13:51.440 - 02:14:09.400

Everything was so secret then, it really was. So here I am, I'm hot and everything, going to go take a swim." When this girl's friend was killed, as you go, taking us from the airport into town, they made us go to another airport and I wouldn't let us in.

02:14:10.180 - 02:14:21.180

As you go, they'd stop you at each new province or whatever they call it, and search the car. And some of the girls said they were searched, too. I said, "Well, I didn't have that." I don't know about that.

02:14:23.400 - 02:14:33.020

That's because your hair was all kinky. Yeah, that was it. It was black. Yeah, it was something else.

02:14:34.740 - 02:14:43.760

Okay. Did you want to ask her what the importance of history? Well, we're through now, huh? We're through, tell her. Yeah, we can do that.

02:14:44.740 - 02:14:52.340

What? Yeah. But I've enjoyed it. But it's amazing.

02:14:54.800 - 02:15:09.100

80% of them take the course. And they're all in this August week. But I really-- I really enjoy it.

02:15:09.220 - 02:15:43.400

In fact, I was-- I was-- I was going to go-- Your sons liberated it?

02:15:43.460 - 02:15:53.460

No. My one son, I said, "Now you can start with what you want." I thought, "Am I going to be able to do it by myself?" But all my friends are falling.

02:15:53.640 - 02:16:01.780

You probably appreciate this. They're all falling and breaking wrists. Oh, wow. Ellen's, I think, just getting over it.

02:16:02.280 - 02:16:09.660

She's breaking bones all the time. Probably 18. 20 maybe. Somewhere in the late teens.

02:16:10.320 - 02:16:19.720

That's extraordinary. But the one I really like, I don't know where it is. It's crochet? Yeah, I have

02:16:20.520 - 02:16:27.060

two bedspreads my mother crocheted, but this is so fine it almost looks like tatty. I took

02:16:28.040 - 02:16:35.380

the tablecloth off and changed it because that was so fine, the little thread was starting to break. Oh, that's great. I don't know how to crochet, so I don't know how to put them back.

02:16:35.860 - 02:16:45.920

I'm a university. And this is her? No, no, this is the example of... Right, that was my inspiration. Right, your inspiration.

02:16:46.040 - 02:17:02.760

Well, those are the same as the one I just took, but these are the original pictures rather than... On an airplane or... I don't recall who she was with, but the girl on the... Alice Hammond, she was president of the 99th National, and the next one, this Canadian girl.

02:17:13.920 - 02:17:29.740

That's a genuine smile. But I always seemed to have somebody that was real small and I was big so they'd be wearing a size 6 or 8 or 8 maybe and I'd better wear a 12 or more. So there was always a problem dressing like we always did.

02:17:29.800 - 02:17:45.140

I was sponsored by Like, remember? You probably don't remember Like. The seminar came out with Like, was supposed to be the first soft drink just for girls. So they sponsored me at the New York race. Yeah, because this has her name.

02:17:46.420 - 02:18:00.100

They're the short skirted ones. To go on the race. They didn't get the sponsors. But I never did. Yeah, that's incredible.

02:18:01.800 - 02:18:21.960

This is good too. We should have, if we had had this, you know what we did? Nancy got an email from a guy in Hawaii that had been to her site and he said he works for Sony. And he's putting together a new Sony, some kind of a game,

02:18:22.200 - 02:18:36.700

Have some pictures if she would send him some pictures that lost so she allowed him to To download or in fact you sent him I think five that she copied and sent him and one of them is a Ruth

02:18:36.840 - 02:18:52.480

That's if we had had this we could have sent you but we didn't have you but anyway, it's gonna be he's That's my favorite picture of all the pictures you show picture I don't know why. Isn't that neat? Yeah, it is neat.