Fighting for Space

by Amy Shira Teitel

  “How wonderful!” Jerrie was thrilled he could make it to this big family event. They’d been together a little over a year, and as Jack had already charmed her parents, she was sure they would love to show him off at the Christmas party, too. “I’ll be right out to get you.”

  “Honey, I can’t stay. I’ve got to take that plane out tonight. Come with me to get it, and I’ll drop you off on my way back.”

  “Oh, darling, I can’t do that.” Jerrie felt her smile falter. “You’ve no idea what this evening means to Mother and Dad. They’ve had their hearts set on my going with them. Isn’t there any way you could delay that flight and come with us?”

  “Impossible,” Jack told her. “Even leaving tonight, I’ll be lucky to make delivery on time in this weather. Look, Jerrie, I’ll have you back in a couple of hours. Please, honey.”

  “Jack, I’d love to but I just can’t. They see so little of me as it is. I couldn’t disappoint them now.”

  “What about us, Jerrie?” he pleaded. “This is all the Christmas we can have together. It’s a long time between trips.”

  “Jack, please don’t put me on the spot this way. I just can’t do it.”

  “Okay, baby. Have it your way. Merry Christmas.” Without a trace of merriness in his voice, he hung up the phone.

  Jerrie put on a brave face as she played the part of the happy daughter all night, regaling family friends with stories of her European and South American adventures. But inside, she felt miserable.

  Hours later, the Cobbs arrived home to find the hulking form of Jack Ford bundled up on the doorstep. He’d said he could have her home within a couple of hours, so instead, he’d delivered himself: he’d picked up the plane in Wichita, flown back to Ponca City, then taken a taxi to her house.

  “Jack,” Jerrie whispered. Standing alone together outside, the tears she’d been fighting back all night finally spilled out. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry, too. I was wrong. Forgive me.”

  “Oh, of course, you big dope. You didn’t have to fly down here to ask me that.”

  “I know. I didn’t. I brought you your Christmas present. I wanted you to have it before—well, New Year’s.” He handed her a small box. She opened it to find an aquamarine ring. He’d found the raw stone in South America and had it set in California. That the ring had gone halfway around the world to reach her finger simply because he thought she’d like it brought the tears back to her eyes.

  “It’s lovely,” she managed, then the tears came as he put his arms around her.

  “C’mon, madam pilot. That’s no way for a grown-up girl to act.”

  “Oh, darling, please don’t let’s ever fight again.” Jerrie smiled.

  “Never again. That’s a promise.”

  * * *

  Jerrie’s life as a professional ferry pilot was anything but conventional. In addition to frequent flights to South America, she also started ferrying in Europe, delivering big bombers across the Atlantic Ocean. The odd night that her travel path crossed with other Fleetway pilots, all of whom were men, they stayed in the same hotel, pooling their laundry with the understanding that the last to leave in the morning would bring any leftover clothes back to the company’s headquarters in Burbank. Her relationship with Jack was similarly unorthodox.

  One night in London, the phone in her hotel room rang. The operator told her it was a long-distance connection from San Francisco, and she knew immediately whose voice she would hear on the other end.

  “Hi, honey,” Jack’s deep, warm voice crackled over the transatlantic line. “When did you get in?”

  “This afternoon. How did you know I was here?” she asked, surprised.

  “Talked to the office. Just got in from Japan. Look, I have to pick up an airplane in Burbank and come on over.”

  “Darling,” she replied, “I’m leaving in the morning. Commercial, back to New York.”

  “I know—” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’m meeting you there tomorrow night. Got something for you.”

  Jack would often finagle his way to wherever Jerrie had a layover, always bringing her a foreign coin or some trinket from a country she hadn’t yet visited to add to her collection. When their flight paths crossed, they took mini-vacations wherever they met. They did return to the beach in Jamaica, just as Jack had promised. They met in Prestwick for a quick game of golf, still dressed in their flight suits to make the most of their short time together. When they overlapped in London or Paris, they took the opportunity to get dressed up and go out on the town, pretending that they were regular tourists on vacation, even if the fantasy only lasted the night. Normality was rare, but when their schedules coincided near Oklahoma, Jack consented to take some time off and visit the Cobbs. Jerrie was determined that her parents should get to know and like Jack, and of course they adored him.

  As the months wore on, Jerrie and Jack’s times together remained brief but perfect. They saw each other so infrequently they didn’t have time to fight or fall into the pitfalls of jealousy or pettiness. But Jerrie knew that she would want more before long. Ferrying was an incredible adventure, but she ultimately wanted a home, a husband, maybe even a family, all things she couldn’t have if she was constantly on the go.

  In the summer of 1955, Jerrie got a taste of what a more conventional life might look like. Fleetway had a ramp full of airplanes at the Burbank airport that needed to be checked out, so she volunteered for the job. Day after day, she flew those planes hard enough to reveal all the bugs and nagging little issues. It was exhausting work, far more draining than a long but level flight across the Atlantic, and less of an adventure, but she was flying unique missions every day, and working out of one of Fleetway’s main airports meant she saw Jack more than once in a blue moon. Jerrie was happy, but Jack couldn’t understand.

  “How are you bearing up with this sedentary life?” he asked her one day.

  “Sedentary?” she shot back. “Are you kidding? Or haven’t you noticed that I spend all day, every day, flying airplanes inside out and backwards.”

  “Rough,” he replied, shaking his head. “Well, don’t worry, hon, we’ll have you out of this rut before long.”

  “It’s no rut, Jack. I like it.”

  “Like it? How can you? The same thing, the same place, day in, day out. That’s drudgery. Boy, it would drive me nuts. I couldn’t stand it for more than a week.”

  Jerrie was all too aware that Jack’s simple statement spoke volumes. If he couldn’t stand the “drudgery” of test flying out of one airport, she doubted he could withstand the routine of marriage. International courtship was one thing; it was romantic, exciting, and unexpected in the best ways. International marriage was something completely different, and Jerrie knew the glamour of it would eventually give way to frustration and anxiety. She never questioned Jack’s fidelity. It wasn’t the pull of another woman she was worried about, it was the pull of another airplane. Flying was his mistress, and she didn’t know if she could prove as tempting.

  Jerrie started to realize there were two Jacks. Jack the man would change his pattern and sacrifice his freedom so they could build a life together. But Jack the pilot was like Peter Pan, who’d never really want to grow up or settle down. It was a conflict she knew he didn’t recognize as he spouted off clichés in defense of their unconventional romance. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he’d tell her. “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

  With Jerrie in Burbank, the incompatibilities in their relationship began to show. They discussed marriage; Jack wanted to be married by a justice of the peace while Jerrie wanted a church wedding. They agreed on taking a honeymoon, of course, but while Jerrie wanted a long, luxurious, lazy holiday on a beach somewhere, Jack was content to go wherever their ferrying schedule took them. It was as though everything Jack had warned her of not two years ago in the Aerodex coffee shop—the long hours, the erratic schedule, the constant movement—was indeed starting t
o prove too much for her. Maybe he had been right when he said women just didn’t have the right temperament for a life of flying. Perhaps she’d been wrong when she’d told him marriage didn’t mean retirement for all female pilots; she had to admit her ambitions were changing now that she was in love. Or maybe Jerrie did have the right temperament for a life of flying, just not one that jelled with Jack’s idea of a flying life. The tone of their phone calls changed. Jack grew impatient, and Jerrie grew silent as what used to be loving check-ins became arguments about nothing with each playing the role of the aggressor in turn.

  “Where were you when I called?”

  “At the airport.”

  “So late?”

  “Yes—why the cross-examination?”

  “Maybe I’m all tensed up,” Jerrie told Jack one night. “I haven’t had a vacation in two years. I’ll get some rest; that will do us both some good.”

  “It’s not you, honey. It’s me,” Jack replied, shouldering the blame. “I’m just trying to do too many things at once. You take a couple of weeks off, and by that time I’ll be in the clear. A new man!”

  Jerrie took a leave of absence from Fleetway, and with distance, she could see they were tearing each other apart. Jack was the love of her life, but marrying him would be akin to caging a bird and clipping its wings. Slowly, she admitted to herself that she had to set him free.

  * * *

  On July 29, 1955, White House press secretary James C. Hagerty sat before a microphone at a small table under the glare of bright TV lights. On his right were representatives from the National Science Foundation, on his left were representatives of the National Academy of Sciences. They were all better equipped to answer the inevitable barrage of questions that James knew were well beyond his comfort zone. The small group of men faced a room packed with eager journalists who fell silent as he leaned forward toward the microphone.

  “On behalf of the president,” he began, “I am now announcing that the president has approved plans by this country for going ahead with the launching of a small unmanned Earth-circling satellite as part of the United States participation in the International Geophysical Year.” Few people in the room had ever heard anything like it. The IGY wasn’t new; reports had been circulating for over a year about this international, eighteen-month-long scientific investigation into solar and geophysical activity. Akin to the International Polar Years that had seen great scientific collaboration in the early 1880s and the early 1930s, this one would run from July of 1957 to December of 1958, continuing the tradition of cooperation as international scientists gathered data during a period of peak solar activity. It was the mention of satellites that gave the gathered journalists pause. Rockets and satellites were fodder for science fiction, but the White House had just committed the United States to launching a real-life space mission as part of its IGY program.

  The news reached the 6th International Astronautical Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, four days later. When Soviet academician Leonid Sedov heard the news, he knew what the Americans were thinking—studying the Sun and the Earth in space meant no atmospheric disturbances—and knew his own nation’s scientists had to keep up. That same day he held a press conference and announced to the world that “the realization of the Soviet satellite project can be expected in the near future.”

  In the days that followed, no other country announced its intention to launch a satellite as part of the IGY. It was as though James Hagerty, in the simple act of reading a presidential statement, had unwittingly fired a starter’s pistol in a race with the Soviet Union to be first in space.

  Eisenhower Presidential Library

  Chapter 13

  Palm Springs, California, January 1956

  “Why I want to run for Congress. The answer is simplicity itself. I started life in desperately poor circumstances. But the political freedom and rights we have in America let me succeed. I owe my country a lot. I wish to serve it in return.” Jackie read her prepared statement before the Palm Springs Republican Assembly, the pages typed in a font large enough she could read without her glasses. “If I go to Congress, I do not expect to have a nicely packaged plan for the solution of every problem. I would expect to be an active member among the four hundred thirty-five members of the House of Representatives.” Weeks later, Jacqueline Cochran-Odlum was officially announced as one of the six Republican candidates running in California’s 29th district.

  Now fifty, Jackie wasn’t looking for an avenue away from high-speed flying, though it had been three years since she’d secured a new speed record. She’d developed an interest in politics working on the Eisenhower campaign, albeit more for the power and influence that came with an elected position than her need to right wrongs she saw affecting citizens. With the president a personal friend, she was well positioned to take on this new challenge as a Republican in a region that skewed Democratic. It just so happened that a congressional seat in her district was up for grabs, but it wouldn’t be an easy win. Her district was one of the largest in the country, spanning 11,000 square miles from the eastern edge of Los Angeles to the border of Arizona and from the Mexican border north for about 200 miles. Her constituent base was largely Mexican farmers concerned with education opportunities and agriculture. None of this made Jackie the likely candidate, so she leaned on her celebrity to court voters.

  By now her story was well known—at least the version she wanted known. Her memoir The Stars at Noon had hit shelves two years earlier, telling the story of an orphaned girl forced into the cotton mill by her foster family, scraping together meager meals and fighting for union rights before striking out on her own to make a living in the beauty industry. “I know what it means to work with my hands—what a good job and security or lack of security mean to the individual,” she’d orate in coffee shops and small rallies before promising to represent the common man in Washington. She walked up and down the streets as spring temperatures soared to 120 degrees, promoting a free, strong, and secure America until her feet were blistered and her hands swollen. She liberally referenced her military service as evidence of her commitment to veterans’ rights. “I do not believe this country can have second-class citizenship for any of its people,” she declared before vowing to serve her country with the highest loyalty. She peppered speeches with names of her well-positioned friends in Washington whom she vowed would support her campaign promises.

  Jackie might have been saying all the right things, but her actions spoke louder than words. She flew around the district in her Lodestar decorated with a larger-than-life portrait of herself, then set up a table right on the tarmac where she’d glad-hand voters while collecting their signatures in support of her candidacy. Jackie’s identity was so wrapped up in flying it seemed natural to her to make her plane a centerpiece to her campaign, but to voters, it underscored how much she couldn’t relate to the common man. She came off as boisterous, and her campaign seemed amateurish, almost as though she thought she could buy votes by dazzling constituents. Critics openly questioned her motivations, suggesting Jackie was more interested in benefitting her wealthy friends than the low-income voters who made up the majority of her district. And for once Floyd couldn’t help; the public saw him as a mean old man who used his money to buy his wife anything she wanted.

  While her name was dragged through the mud in the papers, Jackie fought to turn criticisms into positives. She maintained that her flying campaign was a demonstration of her willingness to visit any corner of her district on a dime and proudly posed for pictures with Floyd in matching ranch outfits looking every bit the devoted couple. Ultimately, Jackie hoped her endorsement from President Eisenhower would put her over the edge for all voters and decided to put her name on both the Republican and Democratic ballots. If she won both, there would be no second election; she’d win the seat outright. She could only hope her appeal would transcend political parties.

  On Sunday, May 27, Jackie threw her energies into one final bid for votes, a “Salute to Jackie
” rally held at the Riverside County Fairgrounds. The event kicked off with a barbecue at four o’clock followed by two hours of entertainment beginning at five, headlined by her friends, comedian Bob Hope, actress Rosalind Russell, and even the famous pooch Rin Tin Tin. Speaking from the podium for the final time in her campaign, she promised voters that she would “represent all of the people and all of the district!” Whether for Jackie or the star-studded stage show, more than 7,000 people braved a dust storm to attend.

  A little over a week later, on June 6, the results were in. Jackie won the Republican nomination by just 4,000 votes. Now she had to take on Dalip Singh Saund, the Democratic candidate, in a second campaign that promised to be far harder.

  * * *

  Jerrie’s leave from Fleetway wasn’t a two-week reset—it became permanent. She felt lost, empty of energy, ideas, and inspiration. Rather than move to a new city to find another flying job and begin her life anew, she returned to her parents’ house in Ponca City. She wanted to be cared for, to have decisions made for her. But Jack wasn’t giving up without a fight. He called, pleading with her to work things out, but Jerrie remained resolute in her decision. By the summer of 1956, the physical toll of ending her relationship was evident. Her weight fell to a dangerous ninety-eight pounds on her five foot seven frame as she struggled against the bleak feeling that came with having no idea what to do next.

  Harvey and Helena were beside themselves with worry. Desperate to get their daughter out of her depression, they finally found something they thought might help: an all-woman international air race from Hamilton, Ontario, to Havana, Cuba, sponsored by the Ninety-Nines. Of course, knowing the young woman as they did, they knew they couldn’t outright suggest she do something. The idea had to be planted discreetly in her mind. So Harvey brought it up very casually one day.