Fireball by Robert Matzen

Author:Robert Matzen [Matzen, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780988502543
Publisher: Paladin Communications
Published: 2013-12-02T08:00:00+00:00

27. The Glamorous Life

Alice Frances Getz was always special, the last of four born to Fred and Katie Getz of Kewanee, Illinois. The Getzes had thought Alice would be a Christmas baby, but she didn’t steal the show from Santa and arrived a respectful two days later, on December 27, 1916. Smart and wise beyond her years, Alice always had her eye on the horizon, because that’s where the planes were. After a family move from Kewanee to nearby Mineral, little Alice would stand and stare with all the concentration of young Charles Castle and, mouth agape, watch the airships pass over. At age 11, in 1928, she made her first flight in a plane and decided then and there that she must have a career in aviation.

Mineral, Illinois, at this time was an American small town lost in the vast open spaces of farm country, a town that had consistently numbered 275 people for a century. Fred Getz had run a farm until he retired in 1930; Katie taught school. Both insisted that their kids must get an education, and Alice happily obliged because of her goal. Always a popular girl, she became president of her class all four years of high school, then valedictorian; never mind her graduating class totaled nine students.

By now, air transportation had gone commercial and a new career field had opened up. In a man’s world where few women this side of Amelia Earhart flew planes, Alice set her sights on becoming an air hostess. In those days only trained nurses could become flight attendants—one didn’t know what might happen 10,000 feet in the air—so Alice trained to become a nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago, graduating in February 1938. She became an obstetrical nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Racine, Wisconsin, then at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

At the beginning of 1939, 22-year-old Nurse Getz saw an advertisement for stewardesses from American Airlines. Are you a registered nurse? Between 5 feet 2 and 5 feet 5? Between 100 and 125 pounds? Between the ages of 21 and 26? If so, join us in the air!

Four hundred girls responded to the ad; six were chosen. Alice Frances Getz was one of the six, and all embarked on a crash course, not in serving coffee, tea, or milk, but in aeronautics, air traffic control, radio transmissions, meteorology, airplane loads and determining center of gravity, timetables, food service, and company organization. Upon Alice’s graduation, American Airlines had a wait list for hostesses, but TWA snapped up the dark-haired, browned-eyed, five-foot-two-inch, 119-pound Alice Getz, and suddenly she was living the glamorous life at 10,000 feet on the Chicago to New York line of TWA commercial flights in the sleek new DC-3s.

TWA air hostess Alice Getz had it all, looks, a warm personality, an education, and now money and fame. She bought herself a yellow convertible, and in her tailored uniform with a smart jacket, pencil skirt, heels, and cap set rakishly on her head, she became

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.