Before Amelia (24 page)

The Raiches' daughter, Catherine, was born in Balboa in 1914. Bessica joined the Orange County Medical Association in 1917 and was elected president in 1923. Active throughout that part of California, Dr. Raiche continued her practice in obstetrics and gynecology in Anaheim and in Santa Ana, where she was on the staff of the Orange County Hospital, concerned especially with public health problems and tuberculosis. As fearless in the practice of medicine as she was in flying, Bessica was a staunch advocate of birth control at a time when such information was illegal and was proud that she never lost a mother or a baby.

In 1925, Bessica and Frank Raiche were divorced, a pattern similar to the Medlars before them. Their daughter remembered that her father took a lot of aviation material with him to New York. Sitting in front of the fireplace “with a drawer full of papers on his lap, he'd toss papers into the fire and say, 'We don't need that anymore.'” Historians will never know what interesting material went up in smoke.

In 1931, interviewed by Gerald Bur for the
Sportsman Pilot,
Dr. Raiche admitted she still had a desire to fly, but it was on hold until her daughter finished her studies. Amused at the prospect of an instructor advising her not to be nervous at the first flight, she imagined his reaction when she would reply: “Sonny, I was flying a birdcage that you wouldn't step in when you were too young for kindergarten.”

Bessica died the following year at fifty-eight when she inhaled too much chloroform to regulate pain following surgery. Her daughter recalled that Bessica had to stop her practice for about two years because of illness; she suffered from cancer. She was sorely missed in her community, where she found helping new citizens into the world as exciting as bucking the wind at Mineola.

After her death a perceptive reporter wrote, “For a woman to fly in those days was like Dr. Johnson's woman preaching: 'No one expected to see it done well, and everyone was surprised to see it done at all.'”

IN 1911, AMERICA GAINED its first licensed woman pilot, Harriet Quimby, who earned license No. 37 on August 1 by successfully completing her tests before two representatives of Aero Club of America, George F. Campbell-Wood and Baron Ladilas D'Orcy. She was an ideal choice to break the sex barrier in America: glamorous, clever, definitely a modern woman, yielding nothing to men. She was also an invented one.

Harriet, the second of two daughters, was born on May 11, 1875, in Coldwater, Michigan, to Ursula and William Quimby. Farming was not William's strong point, and the family moved to California with the hope that life would be better. Ursula, a strong woman in her own right, was determined her two daughters would have a better life than hers had been. By 1884, Harriet was attending one of the local schools in Arroyo Grande, at that time a golden land of orange groves and rolling hills south of San Louis Obispo.

In later years Ursula Quimby created a more elegant background for her pretty daughter: old New England stock who migrated west, an orange plantation in Arroyo Grande as birthplace, education by private tutors in France and America. Certainly Harriet was pretty enough and sophisticated enough to have blossomed from such a background. According to Ursula's script, Harriet's father was a member of the United States Consulate Service and the Union Club in San Francisco.

Reality was somewhat different. The early years were a hard scramble before the family moved west and tried to make a financial success of a grocery store. When it failed, they moved to Los Gatos, where their luck was no better. In 1893, William was declared an invalid and was eligible for a small pension as a Civil War veteran. Ursula became the breadwinner for the family, making herbal remedies and sewing bags for local fruit companies.

The strains of chautauqua, an education system popular in the late nineteenth century that emphasized lectures and dramatic performances in the out of doors, were still heard of in that part of California. The Methodists had built a redwood church in one of the valleys, to which important speakers and entertainers came; the Quaker medicine man set up his wagon and sold an elixir cure-all for physical problems; the Chinese workers tunneling for the Southern Pacific Railroad brought their homestyle remedies, including the golden poppy, which had replaced laudanum as an easer of worry and pain. Ursula had the materials and the know-how to make remedies (her brother in Michigan was known for his concoctions), and there was a ready market in San Francisco, the next stop for the Quimbys, where the family was listed in the 1900 census.

In the next few years, Harriet's sister, Kitty, married and disappeared from family mention; Harriet, a slender young woman in her twenties with vivacious charm, soon became known as a reporter and feature writer for the
San Francisco Call
and the
Chronicle
and, in 1902, she joined the staff of the
Dramatic Review.
At the same time, she won a place among socially prominent San Franciscans. Editors who worked with her recognized her ability—“the keenest nose for news” was one judgment. She had a talent for writing about the unusual or exotic and making readers experience it. Her success in San Francisco gave her the confidence to turn her sights east; a year later she was in New York City, determined to make a career in journalism.

New York was tougher, but rejections only stiffened her resolve. The editor of
Leslie's Illustrated Weekly
interviewed her, read some of her work, gave a tough critique, and suggested she try another line of work. Harriet admitted she had considered cooking but felt she was “a better writer than a cook,” and she thought she could work well with the editor. (Her quick reply probably won her a trial.) Not long after,
Leslie's
printed her first article, “Curious Chinese Customs.” There would be others. Her news sense for the unusual, or what was new, and her ability to involve the reader won her a regular position with
Leslie's
in 1904, as drama critic and editor of the women's page. She was on her way!

Harriet loved to travel—being paid to do so and write about it was heaven. In addition to traveling overseas, she explored the rich variety of neighborhoods in New York—Chinese, Italian, German, Jewish, Hungarian—capturing her impressions in print for
Leslie's
readers. Her drama columns, which appeared weekly, were informative, recommending what was good and warning about what was bad.
The Call of the Cricket
was one of the latter. “Were it not for the utter foolishness which pads out the story, the play might be more of an entertainment than it is. The plot is not a bad one for a comedy, but even the extremely young persons of this generation demand something more than milk-and-water sentiment in their love stories.” Harriet was a modern woman; foolish sentimentality did not play.

There were serious articles on infant mortality—it was high in the immigrant neighborhoods; on the preservation of nature and animals— “A Woman's Moose Hunt,” a story she liked because it had no killing; human interest articles such as “Hints to Stage-struck Girls”; and articles of special interest to women. She wrote about the joys of an ocean voyage—the entertainment derived from watching fellow passengers, the proper clothes to wear, the luxury of total relaxation—all of which gave working women a chance to dream. Her technique with serious articles was to introduce the subject, followed by an interview with a known authority in the field to provide pertinent comments. She avoided personal opinion as much as possible.

A 1910 editor ial in
Leslie's
—“Should Women Vote?”—discussed a topic much in the news and quoted President Taft on that question. “I am not a rabid suffragist. The truth is, I am not in favor of suffrage for women until I can be convinced that all women desire it; and when they desire it I am in favor of giving it to them, and when they desire it they will get it, too.” The editor agreed with Taft but reminded readers that women should be listened to—the influence of “pure womankind” would be a plus for politics. As long as the reformers didn't agitate as the English women were doing, they deserved “a fair hearing.” Harriet surely concurred. Though she was not a suffragist, she was certainly a feminist. Experience had taught her that women were as capable as men, some even more so, and she had shown she could hold her own in the male world of journalism.

As her career progressed, Harriet enjoyed the comforts of success. She rented a suite at the new Victoria Hotel at Twenty-seventh Street and Broadway and brought her parents east to live with her. The Victoria was a stylish and comfortable residence for a successful journalist. She bought an automobile, a sure sign of success, and wrote several articles about women and the auto: the process of learning to drive, the excitement that came from incredible speed, and women's influence on automobile design. Driving about in her sporty yellow model, to paraphrase the words of the song, she proved everything men could do, she could do better.

In 1910, in anticipation of the coming International Air Meet at Belmont Park,
Leslie's
devoted one issue to aviation. The pictures were excellent, catching early aviators in action, the lure of sailing above the earth. Harriet attended the meet, met dashing young John Moisant, whose flying ability enchanted the crowds on the ground, and watched carefully as machines soared overhead. Flying looked so effortless; she was certain she could do it, too. John told Harriet that he had commitments during the fall, but he planned to open a flying school in the spring. He was killed in New Orleans at the end of the year, but Harriet had made up her mind.

She enrolled at the Moisant Aviation School, newly opened at Hempstead, Long Island, in April. Matilde Moisant, John's sister, was among her circle of friends. Harriet conveyed her excitement to Matilde, and in short order she, too, was taking flying lessons. Both young women took to the air despite objections from their families.

When Harriet began training, there were newspaper accounts of a heavily veiled woman, or a person, practicing flights in secret, who jumped hastily into an auto and sped away to avoid detection. Harriet knew how to get attention! The New York papers were agog, even the
Washington Post.
Who was the mystery person? Shortly, Harriet was revealed when a tire blew on takeoff, and every subsequent newspaper account of the flier's identity mentioned her unusual dress—“Woman Aviator in Trousers Flies Like Birdman.” Harriet's aviation career was off with a bang. Harriet explained her reason for the disguise: If the flying lessons did not go well, she did not want the public to know; it might jeopardize her job. As for her garb, she considered the French harem skirt “clumsy and uncomfortable” for flying and had one designed especially for her: a plum-colored wool-backed satin suit, all one piece including the hood, that converted from knickerbockers tucked inside boots to a skirt by simply undoing a few buttons. It provided needed warmth without bulk and allowed her to appear feminine in an unfeminine occupation. (A costumer has noted that Quimby had several suits in purple hues but wore a practical outfit to fly the Channel.)

André Houpert, Harriet's teacher, who was taught by Blériot, had a healthy respect for the power an aviator held in his hands each time the motor started up, a sentiment he passed on to his students. Today the engine of that period resembles a ridiculous toy, but the thirty horse power motor with 1,250 revolutions per minute equaled the pull of thirty horses. It was not to be taken lightly, Houpert reminded his pupils.

The lessons went well and provided copy for several articles in
Leslie's.
The first, “How a Woman Learns to Fly,” in two parts, described the Moisant training—a month of lessons was $750—which was similar to the cost at most other schools. André Houpert was careful and patient; Harriet had thirty-three lessons, most of them lasting only two to five minutes, over two and a half months. Explanations of the machine—its simplicity; the maneuvering needed to run it across the ground before advancing and going up; trying turns; left and right; and the ability to land the machine within a designated distance—were discussed and practiced. Always, there was the question of weather: Was the wind too strong? Was it too foggy? Would the rain stop?

The Moisant School set forth the rules and regulations for training in a pamphlet that was required reading. It set the time of instruction (5
A.M.
every day except Sunday); who determined closure because of weather (the chief pilot) and the order of instruction (the business manager); how students were ranked (by proficiency); rules for maintenance of machines and lecture attendance; a full explanation of the code of the air, which determined when, how, and where to move a machine in the air; what to do in the event of an accident; and grounds for suspension (the business manager decided).

After the first week of shop instruction, Harriet discovered just climbing into the aeroplane was a challenge, its chassis and fixtures slippery with lubricating oil. The first directions from Houpert were for manipulating the switch so that the mechanic cranking the engine in front of the monoplane would avoid injury. Four mechanics held the rudder until the engine had reached the speed to move. For newcomers the sound of the uncovered motor, similar to a bolt rolling inside a metal drum, took getting used to. Once the student was familiar with the footwork for steering, the first lesson was to steer the machine in a straight line for a mile or so across the ground, an effort that seems easy but Harriet found difficult because the aeroplane “possesses the perversity common to all inanimate objects.” It veered off instead of going straight. This dash across the field, if successful, might last two minutes; after another such dash, the teacher should dismiss you, wrote Harriet, “because you have had all that your nerves ought to be asked to stand.” She believed that the French tradition, which kept the student's first efforts under five minutes, was the correct way to learn. Aviators who claimed they learned to fly in three days are giving the aggregate of time; lessons were seldom longer than a few minutes at a time. At the end of two weeks, Harriet had spent barely a half hour in the monoplane.