Seattle

This is me wearing my serving smock, on the New York to Seattle press  flight.

At the beginning of the month of September, 1968, I received a phone call from one of the managers at Pan Am. She told me that there was a special assignment that I might be interested in and would I like to come to her office to discuss it. I was excited because special assignments were usually different from the norm and I knew that I would accept the challenge no matter what it would be.

There was a Pan Am office located in the SAS building on the way to Kennedy airport. I showed up at the appointed time impatient to know what the special assignment was to be. The manager informed me that I was invited to go to the rollout of the first Boeing 747 at the Everett factory near Seattle, Washington. The event was going to take place on September the thirtieth. The reason I was invited to go was because Pan Am was the first customer for the new jumbo jet, and Pan Am planned to unveil the new stewardess uniform at a special press meeting on the same day as the rollout. They wanted me to model the new uniform. I was intrigued as to why I had been chosen. The reason was simple. They had searched the records looking for a New York based stewardess with the exact body measurements to fit the new uniform that she had been presented with. I tried it on and it fitted perfectly. Plus, the good report from the training school was in my personal folder. I accepted the assignment, went home with the new uniform and looked forward to the trip with orders not to let the beautiful, blue uniform out of my sight. It was mine to keep.

The flight to Seattle was a special charter flight filled with press agents who were mostly male, and Pan Am was footing the bill. I was required to work the flight and it was very hard work. We were kept busy not only because the flight was full but   it was also a freebie for everyone on board. Alcoholic drinks were also free. We nearly ran out of alcohol on that trip.

On our arrival in Seattle I was tired. One of the other stewardesses and I teamed up because she had been assigned to model the old Pan Am uniform, at the same time that I modeled the new one. All went well. The following morning she and I were picked up by one of the Pan Am executives and we were given a guided tour on the way from our hotel to the Boeing factory. We took a coastal route and I loved my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful panoramic view and we spun along content with the knowledge that soon we would make headline news. Everyone was interested in the Pan Am stews as we were called.

The photo shoot went well, we listened to lots of speeches and the new uniform was duly photographed and admired. One of the Boeing executives promised me that I would receive copies of the photos that were to be printed in the Seattle Times newspaper, but that was one of my major disappointments. I never received copies of any of the photos taken that day.

The second major disappointment was that I was not in the group photo taken in front of the large aircraft, after it had been rolled out. A decision was made to put the other stewardess, wearing the old Pan Am uniform in the Boeing picture. The new uniform that I was wearing hadn’t been issued yet and it would be some time before all the stewardesses were outfitted and ready to make the change.

We were also given a tour of the new jumbo jet and I was horrified. I could feel a primeval scream rising in me. No! Oh no! It was too horrifying for words.

            “This aircraft can carry up to five hundred passengers,” said the Boeing representative. “And there’s room for a piano upstairs,” he jabbered on, completely unaware of the silent reaction he was getting from us.

I said nothing as he proudly demonstrated the ugly, cumbersome carts that we stewardesses were going to have to push up the aisles. I stared aghast at the tiny cockpit which seemed to be too small for such a large aircraft. I shuddered at the thought of having a piano on board and having to climb up and down the spiral staircase to serve first class passengers. It was the end of an era, the end of glamour and the end of elegance.

The charter flight back home was a nightmare. All the passengers were in good spirits but not the crew. Once again alcoholic drinks were on the house and some of the passengers were getting very drunk. The six stewardesses took turns locking themselves in one of the bathrooms in order to get a rest. I lost count of the number of hands that were trying to grope me as I squeezed past groups of men who were blocking the aisle, trying to party as much as was possible on board an airplane. I ended up just smacking their hands away at every turn but eventually we were forced to ask the captain for help.

Toronto was a difficult situation but not for me. We were on our way back to the States but because of bad weather, our flight was diverted to Toronto in Canada. One of the stewardesses confided in me that she was going to have a serious problem if it was discovered that her visa for re-entry into the United States had expired.

            “How can it expire?” I asked her. “Mine is permanent.”

            “I only have a visitor’s visa,” she responded. “I wasn’t able to get a green card so I just pretended that I was coming here on vacation.”

This stewardess was from one of the iron curtain countries and her visa application had been denied. She had managed to escape detection so far, because on re-entry to the United States immigration rarely checked our passports or green cards.. We just walked through immigration without giving it a thought because the main problems were always associated with customs officers. Some of the customs officers were very nice but others were always anxious to give us a hard time if we tried to bring in more that our maximum allowance.

We stayed the night in a hotel near Toronto airport and with the help of the other stewardesses we hatched a plan. The plan was designed to help get our iron country stewardess back on to the airplane for the journey home. Passengers and crew that were bound for the United States had to clear immigration in Canada before getting on board. We grouped together, acted like a bunch of silly girls, dropped our passports, flirted with the immigration guys and pulled off the feat. Nobody noticed that she didn’t have a green card. I asked her if anyone at Pan Am was aware of her situation and to my surprise she told me that Pan Am was working on it. I’m not sure if it was true but I never found out what happened to her.

I got along well with most of the pilots and engineers. Sometimes there was a navigator on board and the men in the cockpit, with few exceptions, were very pleasant to deal with. On one flight heading northeast over the Atlantic I was in the cockpit serving coffee. The captain asked me if I would like to fly the plane for him while he went to the bathroom. I sat in the left seat, put on the head set and held onto the yoke. Of course I knew that the first officer was flying the aircraft but I pretended to be the captain and started to communicate to Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Gander, Newfoundland airport. It was fun to hear the shocked silence when I identified the aircraft and asked for weather conditions. The shocked silence was followed by a burst of  laughter because ATC knew that Pan Am did not employ any female pilots. I guess my accent was quite thick back then and I heard ATC control say:

            “Hello Scotty. It’s time for you to head back to the galley.”

The captain and I were breaking Federal regulations but I was young, he was ready to retire and the first officer was laughing as well.

On the way home we touched down at Gander to refuel. It was very cold and for those of us that wanted to visit the airport, there were warm, fur lined anoraks and gloves available. The airport workers brought the anoraks on board and did not allow us to step out until we were securely zippered up. I only went into the building once because I wanted to buy an Eskimo doll for one of my nieces. I had caught sight of one of those pretty dolls on a previous flight and asked the stewardess where she bought it.

Boston was one of my favorite U.S.A. cities but I always seemed to be there in the winter. Sometimes I had a schedule where I deadheaded from one place to another on different airlines, so that I could fill in where they were short one stewardess. I was staying at the Sheraton hotel, that was the usual place for Pan Am crews but I was all alone. The next day I was supposed to pick up a trip to Bermuda and so I decided, because I was alone and it was wintertime, I would just have dinner in the hotel restaurant and then go to bed early.

I walked into the restaurant and on my way to a table for one, I heard a voice saying:

            “Well hello there, why don’t you join us.”

Turning around I saw what I assumed to be, the cockpit crew for the flight to Bermuda the next morning. There were four men in civilian clothes seated around a corner table.

            “Are you my crew for tomorrow’s flight?” I asked.

They nodded in the affirmative and so I joined them for dinner. After dinner the men invited me to spend the evening and we had a great time in an Irish bar close to the hotel. Towards the end of the evening, they started to discuss tomorrow’s flight and it was only then that I realized there was something wrong. Tomorrow’s flight was heading to an American city not Bermuda.

            “Are you Pan Am pilots?” I asked.

To my shock it dawned on me that I had teamed up with a crew from American airlines. They laughed hilariously because they had all known from the onset that I was a Pan Am stew and not one of American airlines stewardesses. I felt foolish but on the other hand, it was nice to have some company in Boston.

One time my crew and I were stuck in Atlanta, Georgia. We had all arrived there to work a charter from Atlanta to a destination which I have forgotten. The charter had been cancelled but the Pan Am flight schedulers had forgotten to tell the crew. We passed the day in the airport waiting for instructions and I was fascinated by the slow southern drawl of the people who worked in the airport. In fact I remember that everything in the Atlanta airport was slow in these days. The waitress in the restaurant was so slow that I wondered if we would ever get a meal.

Towards the end of the second year at Pan Am, I was contacted by one of the supervisors who informed me that I had been selected for purser training. I didn’t really want to be a purser although the pay was higher and pursers did not have to double up on layovers. They always had their own room, but the pursers were responsible for all the paperwork. They were in charge of the movies that malfunctioned sometimes, and they had to carry their own heavy carving set in their blue tote bags. The carving set was for the roast beef and each purser looked after her own set of steel. They scheduled me for purser training on the Boeing 747, even though I protested vehemently.

Because Pan Am was an international airline, I didn’t get the chance to visit many American cities. I’m glad that I came to the U.S.A. In nineteen eighty one I became a citizen and it was here that I learned how to swim, how to drive and how to enjoy life. Eventually I married and three months later found myself pregnant. In those days stewardesses were allowed to be married but pregnancy usually signaled the end of their career although we were allowed to return to work if we insisted. I never made it to Australia or Asia but I can't complain because I saw a lot of the world. I had two beautiful  American children who gave me four beautiful grandsons. What more can a woman want?

One morning as I was preparing the scrambled eggs and sausage in the galley I felt my stomach heaving. It was over, I couldn’t work those flights any more and my uniform was getting tight. I would have liked to work for Pan Am a little longer than I did because my duration with Pan Am lasted for only two years. But I’m glad that I was able to experience it for the two years that I was with the company.

I get memory flashbacks, especially now that Pan Am has been resurrected as a television show.

• I remember feeling very hungry on a two hour stop in Warsaw airport. There was no food on board and the airport snack bar only had moldy cheese sandwiches, nothing else.
• I remember eating Wiener Schnitzel in Vienna.
• I remember one purser telling me how she had been attacked on her way into her apartment after returning from a long flight. She was able to grab her roast beef carving knife and stabbed the man. There was a court case and she won.
• I remember eating pancakes for breakfast in New York. In Scotland we ate small pancakes spread with jam for dessert.
• I remember that every time I had a flight to Prestwick, Scotland I sucked in the fresh air as soon as I stepped out on to the passenger boarding stairs . After living in New York, I felt starved for fresh air.
• I remember buying beautiful Galway crystal at Shannon duty free airport.
• I remember flying with a young stewardess who survived the Calcutta crash in December 1968. She grabbed my arm hard every time that we landed. I think that it’s very brave to keep on flying when a person has been involved in a crash.

Excerpt off the web http://www.panamair.org/accidents/accidents.htm

Clipper ??? 12/6/1968 Boeing B-707-321C (N798PA)
Location: Calcutta, India
63 Aboard / 5 Fatal
Struck a tree 1128m short of the Calcutta runway during a visual approach in rainy weather.

Eight years ago I moved from New York to Florida and I am glad to be back. I didn’t move to Miami, I moved to the Orlando area. But I love the fact that once more I can enjoy the Florida sunshine, bask beside my very own swimming pool and enjoy life, the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed. I need to visit Scotland and England again.

This is my swimming pool in Florida. The miracle of learning to swim has never left me. 

• I want to stroll down memory lane.
• I want to ride the London tube.
• I want to visit Earl’s Court where I used to live.
• I want to breath the air at Prestwick.
• I want to see Edinburgh castle and Buckingham palace one more time.

I still yearn to travel the world and I still love airplanes.

Sayonara to all.