Photo of the old Big Four Railroad Depot in Galion, Ohio, taken a bit before my time (!) but much as it looks today in its role of a well-preserved historical building. In years to come I would spend much time there, for as a 'deadhead' pass rider it was easy to hop on a train and go anywhere from Galion, a railroad hub for many decades.
An excellent GALION, OHIO website is
GalionGuy.com
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| When he left his hometown, Indianapolis, Indiana, to go to Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana, Lyle Bristow had made up his mind...he would be a civil engineer, and work for the Big Four Railroad in the Division Office at Galion, Ohio. He had also made up his mind that he would marry a girl from Galion. Curvaceous, green-eyed, blonde Jessie Amann was working as a 'comptometer operator' in the office at the Big Four Depot in Galion, when the handsome new engineer walked in. When Lyle left the office, he told his new colleagues, "That's the girl I'm going to marry." And so he did. |
| Big Four...a nickname for the Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railway Company, eventually acknowledged as part of the New York Central Railroad. Galion was a railroad hub, with Big Four mainlines running east and west, and north and south, through that highly industrialized little town, known worldwide for decades because of the name 'Galion' painted on all sorts of road-building equipment exported all over the world, along with overcoats, grave vaults and dump trucks, all made, and very well, too, in Galion, Ohio, USA. But then the division offices were moved to Bellefontaine, OH, where I was born. Came the big Depression, and my Dad was furloughed, like so many other railroaders. He worked for various government organizations, Ohio Division of Forestry, Indiana Division of Highways, and US Corps of Engineers. We moved from Bellefontaine to Evansville, IN, and then Washington, IN. Back to Ohio where my Dad built dams and bridges for the Muskingham Valley Project, and we lived in Portsmouth and Zanesville, OH, and by this time I had developed a love for the wonderful old river boats I saw so often on the Ohio River. And in between all those moves we lived sometimes with my Dad's aunt and uncle, Harry and Elizabeth Bristow Harwood in Indianapolis, who had raised him after his parents died, and sometimes with my maternal grandparents, Fred and Alice Govey Amann, who still lived in Galion. Like so many other professionals out of work my Dad did whatever he could to make a few honest dollars, even 'riding the rods' on freight trains to get to CA for one job, when I was four years old. Then on to Plymouth, MI, and my Dad's first job in charge of building the post office there, and I started school. |
| It was in Plymouth that I met Cass Hough, then President/owner of the Daisy Air Rifle Co., because I had met his daughter Emmy Lou, when she and I skipped kindergarten, and started first grade at age five. Hough owned an airplane, and I had already begun a lifelong passion for flying machines when my Dad's cousin, Clarence Harwood, would take me to the Indianapolis airport where I saw among other pioneer pilots, the famed Roscoe Turner, and some of his airplanes. And it was Clarence who hoisted me on to his shoulder one evening to view the majestic passage of famed USN dirigible USS MACON, the ZR-5 built by Goodyear Zeppelin Company in Akron, OH, as she flew westward over Indianapolis. Running lights blazing in the darkening sky, the great airship driven by eight 560HP Maybach Diesel engines, at her cruising speed of 75mph was slow even in comparison with the later Constellations I would work in, yet the sight and sound of that passing airship, headed to her eventual Fate in the Pacific Ocean, which none of us could know then, was a sight I can never forget. But I digress. Lt. Col. Cass Hough would go on to an Eighth Air force command, and hero status during WW II. And we moved again...from Plymouth, MI, to Dover, OH, for less than two months, and then to Knightstown, IN, where I skipped the second grade and went into third grade, and my Dad built yet another post office, as well as one in Pendleton, IN. Eventually back to Bellefontaine and fourth grade, and the Big Four. The Division Offices moved yet again to nearby Springfield, OH, so we moved again, and I was in the fifth grade, going to sixth. I never completed a year of school in one place, and in fact, never completed a whole year of school at all until I started high school, back again in Galion. From Springfield, OH, my Dad got the chance he'd dreamed of...to be one of the first civil engineers to be a Track Supervisor, and we moved to Harrisburg, IL, where I started seventh grade. Then to Paris, IL, I finished seventh grade, started eighth, and we moved to Middletown, OH. Then came Pearl Harbor, and as a reserve officer in the Military Railway Service, Captain Lyle Bristow went overseas, to North Africa, then Italy, finally to England in time for D-Day, and eventually the Battle of the Bulge. |
| Mom and I moved to Galion while Dad was overseas, and Mom's cousin's husband, Ivan Tuttle, was Fixed Base Operator, as they are now known, at the local airport! Wonder of wonders, Mom also knew Russ Gledhill from her high school days. Russ had just come home from teaching RAF cadets to fly at Thunderbird Field. And he agreed to teach me to fly, his youngest student, and first female student. I could not have had a better instructor. On my first 'familiarization' flight with him, in a J-3 'Cub,' Russ did snaprolls, Immelmans, loops, Chandelles, and of course spins...all the fun things...but Russ was merely seeking to find my 'fear level,' hoping to scare me away from flying. He never found it, he never scared me...but I was hooked forever on what Amelia Earhart had christened 'aerobatics.' Russ soloed me as soon as I turned sixteen, the legal age to solo an airplane. Then cousin Ivan and all of the great guys coming home from flying in the Big War, and those who came home to take up private flying, took over my training. I racked up time, but wasn't old enough yet to get my private license. And I started reading about famed airshow pilot/entrepreneur, Jesse Bristow. Could he be related to me, I wondered? I dreamed that some day I'd meet him. I finally did, many years later, but that's another story. |
| My Dad came home from the War, too, and we moved to Springfield again. And I commuted to Dayton, OH, to the School of the Dayton Art Institute, but continued my flight instruction and practice for my flight test to get my 'private ticket' at the old Crabill Field in Springfield, from which the great aerobatic champion Caro Bayley would fly her Pitts Special 'Black Magic.' I passed the flight test and got my new ticket as soon as I was seventeen. At the old South Dayton airport I continued to fly, Cessna 120s, then the 'new' 140s, and Piper Supercruisers. |
| Two years at DAI and I had a job as fashion illustrator for the late Home Store in Dayton. And then I went to Los Angeles, worked one Christmas season as illustrator for the prestigious Bullocks Wilshire store, and then went to work for Catalina, Inc., makers of swimsuits and sweaters in those days. Catalina was at that time known as the first to come out with a 'bikini' type swimsuit, their 'Schiaparelli' suit. Parts of the classic Esther Williams-Ricardo Montalban film 'Neptune's Daughter' were shot at Catalina's offices on San Pedro Street just before I went to work there. It seemed such a glamorous life to an 18 year old from small towns in the Midwest! When I checked out in a Canadian Cornell at film star Andy Devine's airport, I borrowed a helmet and goggles from ex-Air Corps fighter pilot turned western film star Robert Wilke, who was a fellow Buckeye and friend of a friend. Wilke made me promise 'not to get blood on' his prized helmet and goggles! Dining and dancing at places like Ciro's, Mocambo, Lindy's, and 'hanging out' at the famous Brown Derby, where one of my favorite stars, Alice Faye, was frequently seen, among many other celebrities; and dancing to the biggest names of the big band era at the Hollywood Palladium, and my favorite...Rhumba Night at the Mona Lisa, and the wonderful Latin rhythms of Ernie Felice...not to mention weekends lolling on Muscle Beach and meeting famous 'body-builders' like Mr. Universe, Armand Tanny...and week nights drinking at Chuck Landis' neighborhood bar, meeting some of the most famous wrestlers of the era, plus drinking at a bar where the Hollywood QB 'hangar' met, its most famous member being Howard Hughes...all heady experiences for an innocent young girl from the Midwest. |
| Another year passed, and back to Springfield as my mother was not well and my Dad thought it necessary for me to return home. There I worked as illustrator for the late Wren's Department Store, having run into one of my former bosses from the Home Store on the street in front of Wren's shortly after I arrived home. Dave Carrigan was then ad manager at Wren's, and he hired me on the spot. I continued my flying in the Springfield Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, and participated in the filming of a CAP documentary titled 'Modern Minute Men,' filmed there. Finally, after attending McConnell's airline school in Minneapolis, where I was hired by Eastern Airlines' Frank Bright, in August, 1955, I began my career with Captain Eddie's Finest...Eastern Airlines. I consider myself one of the luckiest people on this planet, to have worked for the greatest of airlines during that greatest of times...the final years of the Golden Age of Aviation, a time when human beings, not computers, flew airplanes. And Eastern then had a reputation for having the best training, the best maintenance, and the best flight crews in the industry. 'Eastern flies when the ducks walk,' it was said even by flight crews of other airlines. And it was true! Until Captain Eddie, another fellow Buckeye, retired...and much changed, as that great man had predicted it would. But in my thirty one years with EAL I worked some of the greatest airplanes every built...from Martin 404, Douglas DC-4, DC-6, DC-7B, DC-8 'baby and stretch' versions, DC-9, DC-10, Lockheed 049, 749, 1049, 1049C and G Constellations and L-188 turbo-prop Electras, and L-1011 Tri-Star, plus Convair 340 and 440, Boeing 720, 727, and 757, and the first Airbus A-300s. I also 'unofficially' flew the Martins and Connies occasionally, as did other flight attendants with pilot's licenses! I regret missing out on working the DC-3s, but at least I got to ride in them, both as military passenger while in the CAP, and as a civilian passenger in a 'nonsked' flight from LAX to MDW, plus a C-46 conversion as passenger with that same nonsked. |
| By the time I began my airline career my Dad had a 'private' railroad car, known then as 'business' cars for New York Central 'officials.' He would often be in Chicago when I had layovers there, and I'd have dinner with him on the car, always nervous, no matter how much my Dad reassured me, for fear they'd suddenly tow the car to a yard outside the terminal and I'd miss my flight home! Eventually the NYC cut the business car expense, and my Dad had offices in New York City, Cleveland, OH, and Chicago, so I met him in those cities as well as in St. Louis, Boston and Syracuse, NY, when he was working on railroad projects in those cities. My love for trains has not left me. In spite of my passion for airplanes, I grew up on trains, and firmly believe they have a place in transportation that airplanes cannot ever economically take over. |
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