15. I DID IT MY WAY

UP IN THE AIR AND ON TOP OF THE WORLD

When Dodie finally left San Antonio and came to live with us in the San Francisco Bay Area, she went to work as a legal secretary for my dear friend, Alexander Anolik, Esq. Ironically, she ended up sharing an apartment with Christian.  We had many long talks and she told me about the 'stories' circulating amongst family members about me.

I was stunned by all the misconceptions, many of them started by Christian when he went to San Antonio for a visit some years before.  So, I would like to set the record clear, not only for my own grandchildren but also for anyone else in the family who has speculated on how and why I was living the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".

Nobody gave me a damn' thing.  Everything I got, I worked for;  usually holding down 2 jobs at the same time.  So stop saying I was 'lucky';  luck had nothing to do with it.  And everything I did, could have been done by Dodie or by any of you who wanted it badly enough to pursue it.

My one piece of luck was I had strong female role models:  Dottie Patton and Grandma.  They taught me the value of hard work, self-reliance, and perseverance.  They also gave me confidence in my own abilities to reach any realistic goal I set for myself.

TOUGHER THAN NAILS FROM THE START:

I graduated from Jefferson when I was 17.  I still had until my 18th birthday that August before my foster child support money ran out, so I went to school full-time at SAC.  That early start made it possible for me to graduate from college when I was only 20.  I managed to get a ride to TSCW (Texas State College for Women) in Denton, Texas, and immediately looked for a job on campus so that I could earn enough to pay for my learning materials, tuition, and dorm.  I always arranged my classes so that I could work full time on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and go to classes day and night on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

I got expelled from TSCW after 8 months.  My wicked sense of humor brought me to the notice of the Dean when the administration announced that the State of Texas had decided that TSCW was a university, not a college.  And there was a campus-wide contest to select a new name.  I proposed it be called State Ladies University of Texas - which was a popular idea until someone figured out the acronym that would appear on our tee shirts.

Then I organized a demonstration on campus demanding more rights, such as doing away with the 8 PM curfew.  They were running the place like a women's prison.  It wasn't easy unscrewing the bolts that held the wire mesh in place over our windows so that we could climb out at night and go dancing at a local honky tonk.  I think what got to the Dean was when I created a 'doll' of her which we hung on the lamppost and burned in effigy.

Next, she found out that I had smuggled my roommate Ginger out of the dorm and over to the nice nurse who performed illegal abortions and then thrown a party in the graveyard for all our friends to celebrate.  I had all the unfinished bottles of liquor left over from that party hidden in my closet in the dorm.

EXPELLED FROM COLLEGE

She told me that I was allowed to finish that semester but then I must leave and never return  She must have spread the word because the University of Texas wouldn't take me, nor would any of the other well-known state universities.  Finally, I tried Texas A & I in Kingsville, TX.  I figured that any school that had a wild pig (javelina) as their mascot and a Mexican drinking song ("Jalisco") as the school song had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate me.

I went to the Dean there to apply for an on-campus job and was turned down flat.  She was 'keeping an eye on me" and one step out of line and I was O*U*T.   She did say, however, that if I could find employment in town, it was permitted as long as the name and address of my employer were placed on file in her office.

There was a big Navy Air Base in Kingsville, and I had always wanted to be a fighter pilot.  I went to talk to the Navy recruiter and he told me that, although I would probably be accepted as an officer candidate after I graduated, and I would be trained to fly jets, I would never be allowed to fly in combat missions.  "Well, f*&^ that", was my response.  I was really insulted that they didn't think a woman had the guts to bomb villages, shoot down other planes, and strafe foreign foot soldiers.  

But, I got to talking to a kind lieutenant who was there who said, "If you are looking for a job NOW, I can give you a name to contact."  He explained that the officers were housed in a BOQ (Bachelor Officers' Quarters) unless they chose to live off base in their own housing.  They got paid a small stipend to apply to renting a place.  Some of them were smart enough to go together as a group and buy a house to live in, pay the monthly mortgage, get the tax breaks, and then sell the house when they got relocated to another base.  Because they were hoping to get their initial investment back from the resale, maintaining the appearance of that property, inside and out, was very important to them.

THE SNAKE RANCH SAGA

I got the names of 3 officers who had bought a place about a block away from the campus.  They called it the "Snake
Ranch" which, in South Texas, is no joke.  I went there and told them about all my experience working for Grandma and others on renovating houses for resale.  I sold them on the idea of hiring me to work for them 3 afternoons a week, working on the landscaping, keeping the exterior of the house spotlessly clean, scrubbing the inside of the house, and then cooking a dinner for them which I would leave in the oven on 'warm' for when they got home.  For this work, I got paid $25. a week which more than covered my school expenses.

I stayed on at the campus through holidays and summer vacations because I really had no home to go to.  That way, I could also pick up part-time work at the local department store for the  'holidays' and continue my weekly work at the Snake Ranch.  This worked quite well for me through two years of college.  Finally, one month before I was due to graduate, one of the new housewives in the neighborhood was scandalized to notice me going in an out of the Snake Ranch so often and she reported me to the Dean for 'suspicious activities'.

The Dean called me in and said, "That's it!  We are throwing you out for 'gross moral turpitude'.  We asked around the neighborhood and it seems you have been carrying on with those Navy pilots for 2 years."  That really burned me up.  I reached into my bag and pulled out my checkbook.  "Lookie here, those are my weekly deposits for the past two years.  If I was doing what you are accusing me of, I would be making a helluva lot more money than that!".  

She said she was going to call my family, and I said, "Go ahead.  Here's Grandma's phone number".  The Dean got Grandma on the phone and told her what had happened.  I was allowed to get on the phone and tell my side of it.  Grandma told me to put the Dean back on the phone.  "Well, I didn't think she had it in her to do something that clever," Grandma said.  "Now you let her graduate or my next two phone calls will be to the local newspapers and to a local attorney."  End of discussion.  I promised to quit the job immediately and not make any more trouble and I was allowed to graduate.  With honors.  With an audience full of my Navy pilot pals whooping and hollering when my name was called.

UP, UP, AND AWAYYYYY

I interviewed the next week with American Airlines and was hired on the spot to go to the AA Stewardess College at Amon Carter Field near Arlington, Texas.  When I got there, the instructors said I was too thin, too young (not yet 21) to serve drinks on planes, and too headstrong and opinionated to take orders.  I couldn't do anything about the age requirement but I meekly replied that "orders from the captain of the plane can mean saving lives;  you don't have to worry about me".  And then I took a girdle, took a box of Kotex, and stuffed them inside the girdle from waist to crotch to pad me out so that I would have a "mono-butt" (no cracks showing) like the rest of the girls.  Then, and only then, could they fit me for the uniform.

I was assigned to La Guardia Airport in New York City and dumped there with my suitcase full of uniforms, makeup, and hair curlers to find my own apartment.  Fortunately, the employee bulletin board listed other stewardesses who wanted to share apartment costs.  I got situated that same day in a 2 bedroom apartment in Jackson Heights with 4 other girls.  One turned out to be a really slutty girl working for Eastern Airlines who was a well-known politician's 'date' anytime he was in New York without his wife.  That's how I found out about that abortionist in Puerto Rico where I later tried to take Dodie.  He had paid for that slut to have 3 abortions already.  Then there were two from TWA who were often out of the country for several days at a time and one from Northeast Airlines who kept running home to Boston every spare minute she had because she was homesick.

COMMERCIAL PILOTS

I thought I knew all about pilots after my Kingsville experience.  These commercial pilots were something else completely.  Most were World War 2 or Korea vets who had flown combat.  If a stewardess wanted to survive in that job. she learned to laugh at some incredibly stupid raunchy jokes, play "Acey Deucey" in the ready room, and get used to the 'good old boy' horsing around in the cockpit like the 'girdle checks'.  Their idea of fun was to hook a finger in the back of a girl's uniform and pull the skirt and girdle out far enough to make it pop when it snapped back.  They said it was part of the captain's job to make sure all the 'equipment' on the plane was in good working order.

NO GUTS - NO GLORY

When I discovered that the only way to get out of New York and reassigned to San Francisco was to volunteer to work on board the new Boeing 707's, I volunteered immediately.  I was one of the first new stews trained on the 707's back at Amon Carter Field and I was thrilled at the chance.  The flight crews that had seniority did not want to work on the Lockheed Electra or on the new Boeing 707.  It meant working more days per month because the planes were faster than the propeller aircraft.  In those days, we worked 70 hours per month, but the time was measured from 'wheels up' to 'wheels down'.  That meant we got no pay for sitting around in ready rooms, making connections at airports, or delays on the ground.  So, if a DC7 propeller aircraft took 14 hours to get from New York to San Francisco, a 707 usually took only 6 hours.

Plus, a lot of the stewardesses did not like the idea of flying on new aircraft that weren't completely out of their shake-down period.  Or, they weren't thrilled to fly with WW2 pilots whose experience were in propellor aircraft and were just recently trained for jets.

So, because we were too new and naive to know any of this, it was the 'new stews' who got put on the jet planes;  much to the delight of the (usually all male) passengers.

TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT!

I asked about upward mobility at the airline and was informed that I was 'expected to find a husband - soon - and quit flying or become an 'old stew' who would be terminated as soon as she reached 31.  Furthermore, chances of staying with the company after 31 meant going into a ground position.  Furthermore, in a ground position such as ticket counter, reservations, operations, offices, etc., no female had ever gone above the rank of supervisor (employee - non-management).

For someone with my kind of ambition, this glass ceiling made me furious.  But I could see where the only place that might change would be with a less well-known airline.  And not as a stewardess.  So, I switched to the reservations center in New York City.  Because I had so much experience on board the planes in dealing with corporate accounts (businessmen who traveled frequently by air), I was put on the Flagship Desk where I proceeded to become a well-known voice to the secretaries calling to book flights for their bosses.

GETTING SMARTER AND SNEAKIER

Flagship Desk, however, was also a dead-end.  If one of those corporations wanted to hire me, it would be as a clerk in their own travel department in-house.  I looked around to see where I could make contacts that would be worth something to another airline. I took a calculated risk asking to switch to Agency Desk, where I handled the biggest travel agency accounts in the New York area.  I went out of my way to help them 'jump' wait lists, get upgrades, and order special meals for their best clients.  Soon I was known as the 'go to' girl by the most powerful travel agencies and tour companies.

In addition to that, I noticed that the airline reservations office was understaffed at midday and horribly overstaffed at night.  I approached the Vice President in charge of reservations and asked if he would like me to give him a study on the call flow patterns  24/7 and a cost-benefit analysis of what could happen if he changed the staffing hours.  He was a bit taken aback - probably because I was the only person in the entire office with a college degree, and knowledge of statistics and cost analyses.  He offered to take me off the phone and put me in my own cubicle to do this but I said I would rather do it on my own time, at least until I could prove its value.

The results caused some people to be laid off and some others to get moved to shifts like the 7 AM to 3 PM shift where the staffing had been too low  It also decreased the costs to the company while increasing the benefits to the customers.  The V.P. could not promote me.  The airlines had iron-clad traditions that women do not get promoted to the executive level.  Period.  So he rewarded me with a Letter of Commendation which went in my Personnel File with a copy to me.  Over the next year, I earned over 3 dozen of those Letters.

Then, in 1962, I made my move.  I prepared a list of all my 'accounts' - the travel companies with whom I was on a first name basis by then - and an estimate of the volume of business done by them with the airline each year.  I also made copies of the Commendation Letters from the V.P.   Then I went to visit a new airline that had recently started flying out of Idylwild Airport to islands in the Caribbean.  I knew from my conversations with the tour companies that the advent of Boeing 707 service to the Caribbean, by-passing a stop or a connection in Miami was going to decrease the package tour business to Miami Beach and greatly increase the demand for tour packages (air, transfers, and resort hotel) in the Caribbean.

I made my presentation in terms of a marketing strategy:  Don't waste your time and money advertising to the public.  Get contracts with the big tour companies who will need seats on your flights to put into their packages.  And then I showed them my list of accounts.  I only showed it to them.  If they wanted those accounts, they had to hire me as an "Account Executive".  And with that coup, I became one of only 4 female airline executives in the world.  Plus I was the youngest of the four by at least 20 years.  It rocked the airline industry when the word got out and the male execs from every airline were gunning for me.  I broke the glass ceiling but I had the scars from all that broken glass to prove it.