Before Amelia (37 page)

June 26, 1914, duly enrolled as a student, Marjorie went up as passenger with Rinehart in a Wright Model B and had a five-minute introduction to the two levers that operated it. The left stick worked the elevator; the right lever warped the wings to raise or lower a wing or to bank the aeroplane on a turn. The left lever had an additional lever hinged on top that turned left or right and controlled the rudder. The two sticks moved only forward and back. In addition, a white twine string tied on the skids brace in front indicated if the machine was flying straight: Straight back, all was fine; to the left or right at an angle, the machine was skidding or sideslipping; to correct this position, the pilot had to fly in the direction the string pointed to. Marjorie quickly discovered it wasn't as simple as it sounded.

Marjorie Stinson (left) and her older sister, Katherine, seated on a Wright biplane.
SAN DIEGO AEROSPACE MUSEUM

In the factory, a balancing machine, rigged up on a wooden horse with a motor, provided the same practice as flying. The motor, when started, unbalanced the machine; the student had to work the sticks to balance it again. Working on this machine was a daily routine until the student's reactions became second nature. On days when the weather was bad, students spent extra time on the machine.

Marjorie's class consisted of four men—one a gentleman from Japan— and herself. When Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting from the navy was added the next day, she began to worry that the six-week deadline she had set for obtaining a license might be too short; the more students, the less flight time on the school aeroplane. Another dread was the chewing out Rinehart did after a poor flying effort, always within earshot of the others. She found this more “humiliating than being a minor.”

The first Sunday of the course there was no flying. Marjorie noted in her diary: “They don't fly here on Sunday so it seems a very long day.”

Marjorie Stinson preparing to train on a Wright biplane at the Wright School in Dayton, Ohio.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

On poor-weather days (no flying in the rain or high wind), there was nothing to do except work on the balance machine. When the motor went bad, time was lost waiting for a new one. In the meantime, Marjorie moved to the DeLong's celery farm across the railroad tracks and the road bordering the Wright field, saving a commute from the city. Celery grew luxuriously in the level field, and the DeLong's cultivator (really a lawn mower made by DeLong) kept the weeds down, and “the place looked good.” Her classmates occasionally came to dinner at the farm, where the talk was all about aviation.

Oscar Brindley, one of the Wright aviators, arrived at the field with a new machine called the Tin Cow. He had so much help from the interested students that everybody forgot to put water in the radiator; once in the air the cow came back “gently to pasture” in a hurry. The days passed quickly, too quickly for Marjorie, who continued to worry she would not qualify within the six-week time limit that she had bet a reporter of the
San Antonio Light
was a sure thing.

The second Sunday, a grand day for flying, Marjorie rode a couple of the ponies at the field. They were hard to catch. Then on July 6, she had three short flights in the morning, for 15 minutes of flying (the air was puffy), and two more flights in the afternoon, for ten minutes. Orville Wright came out and made some practice flights, the students watching every move. The week went rapidly. Marjorie made six flights one day, giving her such confidence that she felt she was ready to make a landing by herself. Four days later she was eager to get Rinehart out of the aeroplane and fly it herself. She thought she might try telling him “that a lady likes to see him walking about the field”—he had an admirer among the ladies working at the field—but she felt too junior to speak up. Gradually Marjorie's flights lengthened—one was seven minutes. Then a storm came through, and flying stopped.

There were diversions sometimes: a circus, the Hofbraü (Marjorie didn't like beer), fishing, and kite flying. Shortly before she soloed, she went to Sunday school. If it looked as if she had suddenly taken to religion, “not so,” said Marjorie in her diary. The following day, the school routine continued—one of the students smashed up while flying with Rinehart, but by afternoon the machine was repaired and Rinehart tried it alone.

On July 22, Marjorie wrote in her diary: “Rinehart doesn't say much to me. I do believe I am doing all the flying myself, but could only be sure if he stayed on the ground. He just sits in the plane with hands folded.” Actually, Rinehart warned her that day he would test her soon by cutting the motor. Without looking at him, she was to land quickly when the motor quit. Two days later, while flying over a cornfield (Marjorie had a weakness for stands of tall corn), the motor suddenly stopped. She noted in her diary, “With the grace of what little altitude I had and his presence (if not his help) I got back in the field without any breakage.”

The weeks rolled by. Sunday school again on July 26, pony rides in the afternoon on the field. On July 25, Rinehart was married, a surprise to his students—no flights that day. Motor trouble slowed the number of lessons; a spark plug was lost in flight. Marjorie figured that the speed of the school machine was about forty miles an hour, maximum and minimum, which meant “you can't be perfectly dumb and fly this plane too. The reason is that you are given barely what is necessary and no more, there is no reserve, and therefore there is no allowance for errors.”

The weather was either rambunctious (no flying) or puffy wind, when flights were challenging because of the dipping motion as the wind blew, then slacked. The English student, Mr. Brewer, used the morning newspaper as a windbreaker inside his coat. Marjorie succeeded in making several flights of four and six minutes, with Rinehart glued to the machine. “I don't need him at all, but it isn't flying etiquette to tell him so,” she complained.

On the 31st, sister Katie came to town. Marjorie had hoped to finish training before her sister found out, but here she was, “running into Dayton between her flying engagements.” Marjorie felt that Katie lacked confidence in her little sister's ability; she herself was very confident. The last thing she wanted was to worry Katie. Apparently she felt some unease, however; years later Marjorie wrote that she needed more practice landing as the tests approached, but her paid hours of instruction had ended and her money was used up, too. She wired her father, who sent her thirty dollars for an additional thirty minutes of practice time.

On August 1, Lincoln Beachey was exhibiting nearby. The Wright group was in attendance. Beachey raced around the field and did his death-defying drop for the entranced spectators below. Marjorie thought she was pretty good until she saw him. Now she was discouraged. The Curtiss biplane with a Gnome ninety-horsepower air-cooled engine performed the most graceful figures she “ever hoped to see.” On Sunday, Katie left. Marjorie's license tests were scheduled for the next day.

Unfortunately, a broken propeller shaft and wind in the afternoon canceled the tests. Marjorie noted in her diary, “A little war has started up in Europe.” The following day, August 4, “something broken” precluded flying. Finally, in the afternoon, she did one flight with Rinehart, then a two-minute flight alone and a set of figure eights alone. It was great without Rinehart—“I knew exactly who was flying then, and I could almost hear the other students' sigh of relief when I stepped out of the plane leaving it all in one piece, that they might later fly in it.” Eureka! She had done it. If only she could go faster than forty miles per hour.

The next day was almost anticlimactic. She made another set of eights, did the altitude flight, and again walked away from the plane, leaving it intact for the remaining students. It was six weeks to the day; she earned her pilot's license after four and a half hours of instruction. Many fliers learned in a shorter period—Matilde Moisant for one—but perhaps four and a half hours was a better time investment. Marjorie's career lasted longer than Matilde's.

Very quickly, Marjorie settled into her flying career. The first order of business was finding a machine. New ones were costly; a used one adjusted to personal taste was preferable and cheaper. Marjorie found a Wright B, formerly flown by Roy Waite for exhibitions, that needed considerable repair after a crash. The price of her machine was less than the five thousand dollars or more for a new model from the Wright factory. With the help of mechanic Daniel Kiser, the machine was painstakingly put together at Cicero, near Chicago. When ready, she flew more practice hours in the air and carried paying passengers. In the middle of August she joined Katie at Overland Park in Kansas City, Missouri, for her public debut. The flying sisters were a drawing card.

Marjorie followed her debut with an appearance at the Brownwood, Texas, Fall Fair on October 7, 8, and 9 before crowds who cheered her maneuvers and lined up to shake hands with the “plucky little aviator.” Her Wright B was damaged in shipping, requiring Eddie and Marjorie to work on it through the night and day to ready it for flying. On the last day of the fair, the new pilot almost had a serious accident, when treacherous winds tossed the machine about, pushing down on one wing and up on the other. The day was unusually hot—“and the pilot was unusually inexperienced,” commented Marjorie later—which perhaps explained the situation. She admitted afterward that she was frightened, but “practiced muscles and steady nerves” rescued her from danger. Realizing the wind at the east end of the field was troublesome, she performed the rest of her flights to the west. Brownwood sits in a valley sheltered by hills. A slight breeze in the city could be a stiff wind higher up, as Marjorie had discovered, but she went up again, so as not to disappoint the thousands of farmers and visitors gathered from the towns around. The consensus in the local newspaper: She was one fine aviator. An important element in the success of her flights was the Boy Scout troops present on the field who kept the area clear of people. Their help was invaluable, and Marjorie published her thanks in the newspaper. When the fair ended, the Stinson party—Marjorie, Eddie, and Emma, who worried her daughter was too young to be traveling alone—left for San Antonio.

Before settling in for the winter, Katherine and Marjorie made an appearance together in Nashville under the auspices of the Nashville Equal Suffrage League, which hoped to raise consciousness for women's suffrage. The
Nashville Banner
ran an advertisement with banner headlines on November 17 for the “Most Sensational, Thrilling, Death-Defying Event Ever Shown in Your City!” scheduled for 3
P.M.
the next day. Katherine would race her machine against the latest Overland auto driven by Marjorie. It was unusual, perhaps, but hardly death defying. Still, the event seemed to please the Nashville citizens and visitors who filled the State Fair grandstand or stood in the chilly air on the hillside across from the grandstand to watch. A local railroad crew backed up their cars on the track near the racecourse and waited patiently for the chance to see an aeroplane in the air. When it was over, the event was judged “interesting,” particularly for showing the ability of the aeroplane to make sharp turns, whereas the auto could not cut corners on the track. At the end of the flight, the aviator flew over the grandstand and released a shower of Kewpie dolls attached to small parachutes with the suffragette colors. Unfortunately, the wind carried them out of reach of the grandstand, onto the field. Kewpie dolls, the creation of Rose O'Neill Wilson, were a staple at carnivals and fairs in 1914. Real dolls—there were many imitators—are identified by their red heart and the O'Neill label on the base. They are collector's items today.

On their return to San Antonio, the sisters leased the army hangar on the field at Fort Sam Houston, for their aeroplanes, with the understanding that if the hangar was needed, they would vacate. During the winter, Marjorie carried passengers and continued practice flights, which helped create public interest in aviation. Both women visited schools to organize and speak to model-aeroplane clubs. Before the school year ended, a meet was held in May, featuring many different designs in the air. The prize for the best model was an aeroplane ride with one of the Stinsons.