The crew, the story concludes, were convinced the wreck was that of the Hinchliffe plane.
* * *
The lights on Ruth were hot, almost as if they were trying to steam her alive like a Chinese dumpling. The makeup that had just been applied thickly—with a knife—was sliding off her face. Shortly, she feared, her hair would begin to frizz.
She had heard from George the week before; he was about to challenge the flight endurance record with Eddie Stinson, the designer of the Stinson Detroiter. In the months since she had seen him, he’d become the chief test pilot and technical advisor for Bellanca. He still had Dixie’s, he made sure to say, but his brother was managing it for him while he went on the Ford National Reliability Air Tour—organized by Ford Motors to demonstrate that air travel was safe to use by the general citizenry—across the country.
“What about you?” he asked. “You flying?”
“About to be,” Ruth replied. “I’m supposed to be doing some flying for this movie with Richard Dix, but then I found out they have a stuntwoman for me. I’m sure disappointed. I haven’t been up in a plane for a while now. I miss it.”
“Oh, Ruth!” he said in his George way. “You have time yet. Look at you, making movies with famous people. Buy yourself a nice plane and shoot down here to see me!”
“I sure would like that, George,” she said earnestly. “I’m so glad you’re doing well. I heard Lyle left for the South Pole.”
“Yep,” George confirmed. “But he doesn’t know anything about dog training. I hope it works out for him and his broken heart!”
“I don’t think he had so much of a broken heart as he did a broken ego,” Ruth said, then laughed, and George laughed with her.
“I suppose you’re right,” he chuckled.
“George,” Ruth said, then paused. “You up for another try? Wouldn’t it be nice to get up there in the peace and quiet—”
“—and the lightning, the broken oil valve, the smell of gasoline?” George said. “Yeah, it sure would be nice. If the Barendrecht follows us the whole way there, I’m in!”
Ruth smiled and sighed. “I was terrified, but it was the best time of my life, you know,” she said simply.
“Oh,” he answered before he hung up. “Mine, too, Ruth.”
She was glad George was still flying and breaking records and doing what he loved, she thought, as a trickle of sweat from her scalp inched its way onto her forehead.
“Oh, no,” she said as she tried to pat it away, careful not to smudge or smear anything. Why did the lights have to be so damn bright?
“Ruth?” she heard herself being called. “Ruth, we need you here.”
She nodded and walked farther onto the soundstage, where her position was marked on the floor with a red taped X.
She stood directly on it as assistants tucked her frizzing hair under and over and tapped her brow with a cloth where beads of perspiration were beginning to bubble.
“Clear the set,” a voice called, and the assistants immediately obliged.
She turned and smiled at Richard Dix, who held open his arms for her as she embraced him in return, and then the two stood absolutely still.
“Do we need to rehearse again?” a voice called out from the dark.
“No, Mr. Strayer,” both Ruth and Richard called out in unison.
“All right, then,” the voice called. “Let’s go.”
“One, two, three, Moran of the Marines, scene forty-three, take one,” the assistant called.
Both Richard and Ruth did some last-second adjusting as the clapperboard slammed shut.
“And . . . action!”
Ruth Elder lands at Le Bourget, 1927.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The stories of Elsie Mackay, Mabel Boll, and Ruth Elder are true. Many of the events in this book occurred, though there are times when circumstances, dialogue, and chronology were fictionalized for the sake and rhythm of the narrative. Other dialogue was taken from newspaper stories, interviews, and firsthand accounts. I have tried to stay as close to fact as possible. Because this novel is based heavily in fact and rests on research of all three women, the lives of the people in this book did not stop in the summer of 1928.
MABEL BOLL and Charles Levine spilt permanently. She attempted another crossing with Bert Acosta, but the two could not agree on terms, and the flight fell apart. In 1935, Mabel claimed that she was “cured of the flying bug” and married a count, who, it was discovered later, was just a regular Hungarian immigrant. Her fourth husband was Theodore Cella, a harpist and the assistant conductor to the New York Philharmonic Symphony. She died in Manhattan at fifty-four from a stroke triggered by the sudden death of her son, Bob, from a botched surgery on his appendix. Her nephew George remembers his father and her husband collecting her jewels in a bag and walking from broker to broker in the diamond district in New York, trying to sell them after her death. Growing up, George’s children played dress-up with the old clothes of the Queen of Diamonds.
RUTH ELDER did indeed become a silent film star, making movies with Hoot Gibson and Florenz Ziegfeld. She retired from film after marrying her third husband, Walter Camp, the manager of Madison Square Garden. Her fourth husband was A. Arnold Gillespie, the Oscar-winning head of special effects at MGM; he worked on The Wizard of Oz, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, and more than two hundred other films. Ruth continued to fly for the next ten years after her transatlantic attempt, until complications from a broken hip made it difficult. She married three more times, the last two to Ralph King, her husband of twenty-one years, and worked for a while as a secretary at Hughes Aircraft. Howard Hughes knew her from her aviation days and gave her the job. She died in her sleep at age seventy-three of emphysema in the arms of Ralph King on October 10, 1977, one day short of the fiftieth anniversary of her flight. She kept in touch with George Haldeman for the remainder of her life.
GEORGE HALDEMAN continued to fly, and in 1928 teamed up with Eddie Stinson, the designer of the American Girl, to break the world’s nonrefueled endurance record, flying for fifty-three hours and twenty-seven minutes. In 1936 he joined the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which eventually became the FAA. In World War II, he was the chief of the Test Flight Branch, determining which planes the U.S. Army Air Corps, which would soon become the Air Force, would use. He never stopped flying, and by 1977 had logged almost thirty-four thousand hours in the air. When he died in 1982, his stellar reputation as an airman was one of integrity and meticulous attention to detail.
CHARLES LEVINE never regained the glory he had achieved on his flight with Chamberlin in the Miss Columbia, and lost everything in the stock market crash in 1929. He was investigated by the FBI, and the federal government sued him for half a million dollars in back taxes; his remaining planes were auctioned off for back rent on the hangar. He was arrested for counterfeiting in 1930, for grand larceny and forgery in 1932, for violation of the Workman’s Compensation Laws (also in 1932), and for attempting to pass counterfeit money in 1933. Grace finally divorced him in 1935. He was convicted on federal charges of smuggling 2,000 pounds of tungsten powder from Canada in 1937 and served two years in prison. In 1942 he was convicted of smuggling a German alien into the country; it was a concentration camp survivor. “My father was thrown out on the streets. He was wandering the streets,” Levine’s daughter, Ardith Polley, said in a radio interview in 2002. “If it wasn’t for this nice woman who picked him up, took him in, and took him under her wing . . . And he died, I think. I really don’t know.” He died on December 6, 1991, still being taken care of by that woman who found him on the street thirty years earlier. The FBI never recovered a penny. He was ninety-four.
EMILIE HINCHLIFFE’S first job after Ray’s death was as the secretary and translator to David Lloyd George, the former Prime Minister of England during the First World War. During the London blitz, she was a volunteer ambulance driver. When she remarried, Gordon Sinclair gave the bride away, and she remained very close
to the Sinclairs for the rest of her life. She was a translator during the Nuremberg trials as she spoke seven languages. Her entire family in Holland was killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. She lived for a time in Tangiers, working at the British embassy, and eventually moved to Australia. Her daughter Joan departed England for Sydney on the Ranchi, one of the last ships Elsie Mackay had designed. Both daughters, Joan and Pamela, relocated from England to Australia, where they now live. Joan was the fourth woman to get her commercial airplane pilot’s license in Australia. Emilie requested that after her death her ashes be spread over the Atlantic near the Azores, where she believed her husband had died. Her granddaughter, Gini, chartered a plane and fulfilled her grandmother’s wish. At the time of her death, Emilie still had eleven pounds sterling of the Inchcape money left, the remainder of which went toward her daughters’ education.
MAURICE DROUHIN was test-flying a Couzinet 27 in 1928 when the aircraft crashed: it ejected him and then landed on him, killing him instantly.
LYLE WOMACK did indeed travel with Admiral Byrd to Antarctica as a dog trainer after his divorce from Ruth. He finally settled in Oregon, where he tamed lions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you:
Tricia Boczkowski for giving me the green light on this project. Even though we didn’t get to finish it together, I will always be grateful that you made it possible. Thank you for being as excited as I was about it, and for tolerating my excessive emails every time I found a new nugget of incredible information.
Karen Kosztolnyik for picking up the charge and providing your excellent hand in bringing this book in. I appreciate your patience, guidance, support throughout the process, and editing this book like a tailor. It was a wonderful experience working with you, and I thank you infinitely for taking me onto your already very full plate. We both worked very hard on this project, and I value your dedication toward it.
Jayne Baldwin for her invaluable research in West Over the Waves, for her collaboration in our research of Elsie Mackay, and for pointing me in the right direction numerous times. I’m delighted you found my email and that we were able to discover great things together, and I’m grateful for your friendship.
Laura Greenberg (my first mentor), who was truly invaluable in helping me shape the book into a streamlined form and worked with me for endless hours on the phone, day after day after day, until our ears were sweaty and gross. And sent me homemade babka when I crossed the finish line.
Pamela Hinchliffe Franklin for answering my endless questions about her mother and father, for talking to me for hours at a time from Australia, and for going through her boxes of documents to find photographs, telegrams, and correspondence from almost a century ago. Your mother and father each deserve books of their own. They were both amazing, exceptional people.
Joan Hinchliffe, for her contributions and for being generous with her time to correspond and speak with me. Even though it took me six years to find you and Pam, I feel the story is finally complete now that I have.
To Ruth Elder’s family; to Uncle Thomas McLellan, who furnished me with wonderful stories, photos, and facts about the family and his cousin. I know how proud you are of Ruth, and I can only hope that this book does justice to her vitality and her strength. It was wonderful to get to know you and your family. And thank you so much for the recipe for tomato pie!
Christine Turner, Danielle Darling, and Melba Kuhne, who solved mysteries with me (it was the student pilot!) and tracked their cousin Ruth’s lineage and history to help give me a fuller, more complete picture of who Ruth was. It was joy to get to know you all, and thank you for helping me sort out who was who and helping me fit the puzzle pieces together.
Jerry York, the Anniston, Alabama, aficionado of Ruth, for sharing the documents and information you had and for keeping Ruth’s story very much alive.
George Boll, for his recollections of his incomparable aunt Mabel and what a firecracker she was. I loved your stories and speaking with you.
Quentin Wilson, for his expert advice, his research about what happened to the Endeavour, and his interpretation of photos of the wheel well that washed up at Donegal. I don’t think we’ll ever know what truly happened that night, but I’d like to think our suppositions come pretty close.
Jen Bergstrom, for her enthusiasm and support for this book. Becky Prager, who fielded questions and kept things organized and on track. I think you are amazing.
My first reader, Louise Bishop, who devotedly went through the first draft of this book; Mary Allison Smith, Bennet Smith, Amy Silverman, Lore Carillo, Jack DeGerlia, Will Rowe, Lisa Notaro Goin, and my husband, whose feedback was incredibly valuable.
Bill Allen, for scouring through his archives and digging up original negatives of Ruth for this book, and for his insight; and Helen Austin, who kindly came through with a rare photo of Ruth and the Felix doll. Both of you are forever appreciated.
Jenny Bent, who is always and ultimately the best pitcher a girl can have.
To my family and friends who listened to me recount the stories of these marvelous women and men whose story is told here, I doubt very much that it ever got boring, but thank you nonetheless for not saying so.
And always, to the readers who have taken this jump with me into historical fiction. I love your excitement, your faith, and for generally being so incredibly awesome.
LAURIE NOTARO was a reporter and columnist for the Arizona Republic. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club, It Looked Different on the Model, The Potty Mouth at the Table, and other works. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
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Also by Laurie Notaro
Housebroken
Enter Pirates
The Potty Mouth at the Table
It Looked Different on the Model
Spooky Little Girl
The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death
There’s a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell
An Idiot Girl’s Christmas
We Thought You Would Be Prettier
I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies)
Autobiography of a Fat Bride
The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
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Butler, Susan. East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart. Reading, MA: Da Capo Press, 1997.
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Dixon, Charles. The Conquest of the Atlantic by Air. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1931.
Dye, Robert L. A Pioneer in Aviation: The Life Story of Brice H. Goldsborough and His Contribution to Aviation Instrumentation. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
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Jessen, Gene. The Powder Puff Derby of 1929: The True Story of the First Women’s Cross-Country Air Race. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2002.
Lebow, Eileen F. Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2002.
Lomaz, Jody. Women of the Air. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1987.
Lovell, Mary S. The Sound of Wings: The Life of Amelia Earhart. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2009.
Nathan, George Jean. The Entertainment of a Nation, or Three-Sheets in the Wind. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1971.
Rosenblum, Constance. Gold Digger: The Outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009.
NEWSPAPERS, PERIODICALS, AND OTHER SOURCES
The Aberdeen Press and Journal
The Advertiser
The Advocate
The Albany Advertiser
The Anniston Star
The Argus
Barrier Miner
The Border Watch
The Brisbane Courier
The Cairns Post
The Canberra Times
The Catholic Press
The Citizen