Gladys O’Donnell again led the pack of fifty-two into El Paso, with Phoebe nineteen minutes behind her. Officials made certain to announce repeatedly that arrival time meant little. Under the handicapping system, O’Donnell, who landed first, ranked fourth in the race; Phoebe landed second and was ranked second to Eldon Cessna at the fifth checkpoint.38 On the way to Amarillo, another plane was forced down with engine trouble. Ruth Stewart made a skillful landing in rough country crossed by ditches and arroyos near Roswell, New Mexico. After repairs, Stewart proceeded on to Amarillo.39 Handicapped tallies at the overnight stop showed Phoebe had moved ahead of Cessna and was now the leader.40
The greatest challenge of the race was a fierce thunderstorm with very strong winds that threatened the fliers as they headed toward Enid, Oklahoma. “My little Monocoupe tossed about like a leaf and the rain came down so hard I could scarcely see ahead of me,” Phoebe later noted.41 A fellow pilot witnessed Phoebe’s arrival as she fought the gusty sixty-mile-per-hour gale:
Phoebe Omlie has just landed—and what a thrill she gave us. She put the plane’s wheels on the ground five times before she got down, and then rolled first on one wheel and then the other. The wind nearly turned her plane over after she stopped rolling. Several local committeemen rushed out to the field to help her taxi in. This wind is especially treacherous for landing a high-winged monoplane.42
All the pilots struggled to land safely in the strong crosswind. As soon as they touched down and slowed, men grabbed wingtips to keep the planes grounded until they reached their parking places and could be tied down.43 O’Donnell managed to turn the wind to her advantage as a tailwind; she was said to have averaged 210 miles per hour for the rest of the leg into Bartlesville. Phoebe landed second.44 The following day, landing in East St. Louis, the two women maintained their respective leads, Phoebe landing within sixteen minutes of Gladys.45
The weather remained treacherous. A series of thunderstorms generated a 60 mph tailwind, pushing average speeds well beyond handicap targets. As she had at every stop, Gladys O’Donnell landed first in Dayton, but the handicap point system had Phoebe as the leader. Again, between Dayton and Akron, Ohio, the pilots ran into converging storms filled with lightning that danced from cloud to cloud. Phoebe was, she wrote, “tossed like a salad” in her tiny plane, wondering “whether the airplane was right side up or standing on end.” But she held on, anxiously scanning the horizon until she finally spotted the big dirigible hangar at Akron, and landed in a drizzling rain.46 At least two other pilots, Jean La Rene and Pancho Barnes, had been forced to land in open fields to wait out the storm.47
Phoebe Omlie flashed across the finish line at Cleveland, first of the contesting men and women fliers in the Transcontinental Handicap Derby. Eldon Cessna was the first man to land at Cleveland; he finished third overall. O’Donnell landed next. Although she had consistently posted faster speeds than the other competitors, O’Donnell finished sixth. “The smaller, slower planes had the advantage all the way,” she complained sourly. “If I ever fly a handicap Derby again, I’ll fly an old war-time Jenny.”48
Phoebe’s official first-place finish would not be announced until the following morning after hours of handicap computation by race officials. Nonetheless, the crowd saw a winner. As her plane rolled to a stop in front of the grandstand, a mob rushed forward to drape a horseshoe of roses and sweet peas over the front of Miss Memphis. Then, as Phoebe hopped to the ground, the wreath was snatched from the plane and draped around her shoulders for photographs.49
Phoebe and her handicapped competitors arrived in the middle of a tenday extravaganza dedicated to the “grandest spectacle that peace time aviation [could] offer.”50 “With speed and more speed, thrills and more thrills, the pageantry of the air” opened the day before with an estimated 400,000 lining the streets and perched on street lamp posts and trees to watch a five-mile procession of marching bands, flower-decked floats, “living flags,” “floating gardens,” and military regalia.
The 1931 air races had more events and more spectacular aerial demonstrations than ever before: stunt flying by both men and women in planes of many shapes and sizes, hair-raising acrobatics by an international stunt team, precision flying by naval and marine squadrons, and one feature demonstration of dazzling new radio technology. Al Williams, flying his Flaming Hawk biplane, took his stunting orders from his audience. The “voice of the people” talked to Al through the announcer and a radio transmitting and receiving set. This set was a seventeen-pound affair built for this demonstration by Western Electric Company. The transmitter came with a special helmet with headphones attached. All Al had to do was flip a switch and he could hear the announcer giving him flying instructions from the audience, which he would then execute. The communications were broadcast over the public address system as the crowd watched in astonishment.51 The afternoon show featured “the greatest exhibition of daredevil flying ever staged in this air-thrill-wise city.” German World War I ace, Maj. Ernst Udet, pitted “his flying skill against the laws of gravity,” piloting his plane “in positions never intended by the Wright brothers …. Like a crazily bouncing ball, the little craft went hopping here and there, now bouncing on one wheel, now dragging a wing tip in the turf, now jumping a line of parked airplanes.”52
Udet picked up a handkerchief off the ground with his wingtip, then ended his show with a loop and a landing on a dead motor.53 Following his thrill show, Udet wanted to settle some unfinished business. During the war, he had shot down an American pilot named Walter Wanamaker. Udet had landed next to the crash and offered a cigarette to Wanamaker as they awaited German medics. The German ace cut the tail fabric containing the number of Wanamaker’s plane as a prize of war. When Udet arrived in Cleveland some ten years later, he bore that souvenir fabric in a frame which he presented to Wanamaker, then the mayor of Akron, Ohio, who was in the stands.54 Then, in one of the more moving events at the races, two World War enemies reached a separate peace when America’s “ace of aces,” Maj. Eddie V. Rickenbacker, shook hands with his German counterpart, Maj. Ernst Udet.55
The following day, 31 August, Phoebe Omlie, “[t]he stocky little woman from Memphis, who in her career in the air has won more victories in competition than any other woman flier in the country,” was named the winner of women’s division of the handicap transcontinental derby, more than ten points ahead of Martie Bowman, adding the $3,000 prize to a comparable amount in lap prizes.56 But she wasn’t finished. That afternoon she competed in two closed-course events for small planes. The first race was a free-for-all restricted to women flying planes powered by engines of not more than 510-cubic-inch displacement. The three women entered—Phoebe, Mary Haizlip, and Maude Tait—took off in a race-horse start, with the planes lined up and leaving the ground together.57
The course lay over hilly and tree-covered country productive of extremely bumpy air, but the women had their planes down over the tree tops for the whole six laps of the five-mile course …. Mrs. Omlie’s Monocoupe took the lead at the take-off. She wasted no power climbing but flew along, her wheels just clear of the ground, until she approached the forest at the first turn. Mrs. Haizlip … rounded the first turn within ten feet of the Omlie plane, and Miss Tait … was close behind. In this fashion almost flying formation, the three pilots made the six laps, and at the finish Mrs. Omlie was only three seconds ahead of Mrs. Haizlip.58
Phoebe averaged 129.885 mph, taking the $500 prize. “A few minutes later Mrs. Omlie, flying the same machine but at a faster clip took the women’s race for commercial planes with engines of 650-cubic-inch displacement. The Monocoupe averaged 132.481 mph. over the thirty miles.”59 This time the prize was $750.60 She also put in a respectable speed of 149.049 mph in the race for the Aerol Trophy, which she had won in 1929. The criteria for the race had changed from rewarding a cross-country handicap winner to a free-for-all speed race for women pilots.61 Phoebe finished fifth, a full five minutes behind the winner, Maud Tait, who clocked 187.57 mph in
her 215 hp Gee Bee Y racer.62
That night, at a huge banquet for the fifty-two finishers, Phoebe Omlie was officially declared the winner of the Sweepstakes Derby and presented with the keys to the long, low, rakish Cabriolet convertible.63 During the rest of the festivities at the National Air Races, Phoebe and her husband, Vernon, were frequently spotted riding proudly in their new Cord automobile around the grounds.64 She had won the Sweepstakes against thirty-six men and sixteen women with a handicap score of 109.19 points. The winner of the men’s division, D. C. Warren, finished second with 103.5 points. Altogether, Phoebe collected over $7,000, an extraordinary amount of money in the midst of the Great Depression.65
The National Sweepstakes would be Phoebe’s last race. Her sponsor, Mono Aircraft, had been struggling for survival following the death of founder Willard Velie in October 1928, and the death five months later of his son and heir, Willard Velie Jr. The Velie family sold out to Allied Aviation Industries, which moved its operations to St. Louis in 1931.66 Phoebe severed her relationship with the company, although she continued to fly her personal Monocoupe.
When she came home, the city of Memphis threw their famous aviator a big party at the Peabody Hotel. After she regaled the crowd with stories of the dangers encountered during the derby, the chamber of commerce presented her with a scroll “in formal recognition of nationally pre-eminent attainment in the field of aeronautics, through which has been furthered the objective of the 10-Year Program of Progress to advertise Memphis to the nation.” The text of the scroll paid tribute to her as “victor over a host of rivals in the National Air Races of 1931 and a leader in the work of building a greater future for aviation in Memphis, the South and the nation.”67
During the Depression, the key to survival for the aviation business was a contract to fly the mail; these funds sustained commercial aviation and served to underwrite passenger service. The airmail had finally come to Memphis in June 1931 after a five-year struggle. The first ship was christened the Cotton States Mail by Mary Hill Overton, the mayor’s daughter, who dented the starboard wing motor cowling as she smashed the beribboned bottle against it.68 Universal Aviation, which had been folded into American Airways, began operating a regular airmail service throughout the Midwest, with a stop at Memphis. Another airmail contract for a route from Chicago to New Orleans via Memphis brought a second airline, Pacific Seaboard, to the city. The airline soon changed its name to Chicago and Southern Air Lines and began offering passenger service.69
The regular airmail schedule and the support it required sustained the airport and Mid-South Airways through the challenging decade, and eventually led to significant improvements. After mail disruptions during the winter caused by the inability for heavy planes to land safely at Memphis, the airport improved its grass airfield with hard-surfaced runways. August 1932 also saw the introduction of air express, “the airline making an arrangement whereby packages can be picked up at the sender’s door, transported by air and delivered direct to the consignee.” The airport commission reported that 675 planes, exclusive of regularly scheduled airlines, had visited the municipal airport in the first six months of that year.70
Passenger service followed the airmail. A total of 5,391 passengers traveled to and from the airport in 1932. Chicago was now just six hours away, New York could be reached in fifteen hours, Los Angeles within seventeen hours. Memphis also proudly boasted a passenger connection to Europe, although the trip would require some patience. Passengers traveled by American Airways to Atlanta, the Southern Railroad to Miami, Pan-American Airways to Rio de Janeiro, and the Graf Zeppelin to Spain. “Memphians leaving here May 2 on the first trip would be in Spain within 13 days, allowing an afternoon and night in both Miami and another in Rio.”71
Phoebe settled down to work as the secretary-treasurer for her husband’s business, Mid-South Airways, Inc. She assisted her husband in training students, servicing airplanes, storing and repairing airplanes, making local passenger hops, and doing photographic work.72 The local newspaper described the couple as former barnstormers who were “in white collar jobs now.”73 It seemed apparent that this would be their future together.
Then, a year after Phoebe’s triumph in Cleveland, came a message that would change her life. A telegram arrived from the wife of the governor of New York, Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt. It read:
AS ONE OF THE LEADING WOMEN FLYERS IN THE COUNTRY AND A SOUTHERNER WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HELP US ON THE DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN STOP OUR IDEA WAS THAT IF YOU COULD POSSIBLY ARRANGE IT WE SHOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOU FLY TO NEW YORK MEET DEMOCRATIC OFFICIALS AS OUR GUEST RECEIVE DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN LITERATURE FROM THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE HERE AND FLY BACK WITH IT TO MEMPHIS WHERE YOU WOULD AGAIN BE MET BY A NATIONAL COMMITTEE WOMAN STOP NEEDLESS TO SAY IT WOULD BE SPLENDID PUBLICITY FOR THE DEMOCRATS AND WE SHOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COULD GET IN TOUCH WITH ME BY RETURN WIRE COLLECT ON THE MATTER I SHOULD BE GREATLY OBLIGED74
Recruiting America’s most successful woman pilot for the campaign was fitting for the air-minded Roosevelts. Mrs. Roosevelt took her first airplane ride in 1930 and loved it; she made it a point to say that her only chance to fulfill her crowded schedule was to travel by air.75 Franklin had been a strong advocate for naval aviation while he served as assistant secretary of the navy. He would later become the first presidential candidate to fly when he chartered a Ford Tri-Motor from Albany to Chicago to address the Democratic National Convention in 1932. Their son, Elliott, was a licensed pilot.76 This promised to be an administration receptive to aviation development, and Phoebe was thrilled to be asked to participate. In October, she flew to New York to meet with Mrs. Roosevelt and the Democratic National Executive Committee and key Democratic national committeewomen.77
Phoebe joined an extraordinarily well-planned, woman-centered campaign staff led by Mary W. “Molly” Dewson, director of the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee. The group included Lavinia Engle, a member of the Maryland legislature and head of the women’s speakers’ bureau; Emily Newell Blair, vice chair of the national committee; and Tennessee attorney Sue Shelton White, executive secretary of the Women’s Division.78 They organized a precinct-level, door-to-door, woman-to-woman strategy for the 1932 presidential campaign. The Women’s Division printed millions of leaflets (called “rainbow fliers” because they were printed in many different colors) to be distributed by women “grass trampers” directly to other women. Their strategy was to reject the conventional approach to going after “the woman’s vote” by emphasizing their candidate’s personality and charm. Instead, Dewson valued women’s serious approach to politics. Her strategy was to appeal “to the intelligence of the country’s women, to all those thousands feeling the pinch of hard times. Our[s] were economic issues, and we found the women ready to listen. They had been thinking hard about such things.”79
Phoebe agreed to undertake a flying campaign tour for the Democratic presidential ticket using her winning Monocoupe, Miss Memphis, which was repainted with the slogan: The Victory Pilots—Win With Roosevelt.80 Barely three weeks before the election, Phoebe took off with Sarah Lee Fain, one of the first two women to serve in the Virginia General Assembly, on a 5,000-mile campaign trip, the first air tour of its kind on behalf of a presidential candidate.81 The pair stopped in numerous places in twelve states—Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee.82
The women kept to the tight schedule worked out by the DNC, although severe snowstorms canceled them out of Bismarck and Carrington, North Dakota. In Watertown, South Dakota, they landed in six inches of snow. Because there was no heat in the plane, they wore multiple layers of stockings and sweaters.83 While Phoebe was perfectly comfortable flying Ms. Fain and herself in her tiny plane, public speaking was another matter. Nonetheless, she tackled the problem with her usual can-do attitude and reportedly delivered an adequate if not eloquent effort, stating that she believed it to be the policy of Mr. Rooseve
lt to “bring stability from chaos” in all segments of the economy, including the aviation industry.84
By all accounts, the tour was a success, as, of course, was the campaign. Molly Dewson told the press, “We were proud of our women fliers because they carried through their schedules successfully, while the Hoover women fliers all came to grief.”85 As it turned out, Roosevelt flier Phoebe Omlie had herself come to grief. Sue Shelton White reported to Molly Dewson that Phoebe not only deserved but needed a job. She wrote:
Phoebe Omlie is a real casualty of the campaign. While she was out with her plane one of her creditors threw her in bankruptcy. The petition was filed with a federal judge who was appointed by Harding or Coolidge … Phoebe is very reticent about her personal affairs and had never told me this and does not know that I know it. It came to me yesterday through a mutual friend. I asked that friend if she didn’t think you should know it and she said Phoebe asked her not to tell you, after she had wormed the information out of her. But hell, I am telling you now any how.86
Since before the election, Dewson had been preparing to secure patronage appointments for a host of Democratic women in the New Deal government, and White wanted to be certain that Phoebe was included. When President Roosevelt indicated he wished to have a woman in his cabinet, Dewson was ready to make a strong case for Frances Perkins for secretary of labor.87 She mobilized her network to press Perkins’s nomination, including asking Phoebe to write to the president at Warm Springs to lobby on Perkins’s behalf.88
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