Jan’s inaugural stewardess commission was on the World War II “Gooney Bird,” the twin-engine DC-3. They began flying in 1935. They are still in service to this day.
So is ninety-something, Jan. Over breakfast, she recalled her favorite flight crew.
“In those days, the unpressurized planes flew low. On long flights, our two mischievous pilots would open their cockpit windows and deploy long strands of chicken bones, all tied together with string. They let out enough line so the bones would hit and clatter against the windows of the unsuspecting passengers, provoking shock and dismay, while traveling at several thousand feet altitude.”
“I suppose turkey bones would have been too big and heavy for the fragile windows!”
Jan eventually graduated to DC-4’s, and to DC-6’s. The latter contained sleeping berths for upscale passengers, reminiscent of the era’s train transportation.
Based in Los Angeles, she served Hollywood royalty: Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Hedda Hopper, Walt Disney, John Wayne, Barbara Hutton.
Jan lived in a stewardess dormitory, where a visiting pilot ran into Jan quite by accident when he lost his way, arriving at the wrong dormitory; Jan was smitten.
One day, after making repairs under the hood of her Model A Ford, which she had purchased from another pilot for $125, Jan drove across town to visit him. He invited her to Tucson, where he was based. So she spent the next several weeks “visiting her grandmother” in Tucson. Two months after they met, she married her sweetheart pilot.
“Did that turn out to be a good thing?” I was incredulous. She curled her index finger to meet her thumb, forming an “O,” as in “perfect.” “We had an amazing life together. We traveled to every part of the world. Greece! We loved Greece!”
Later that afternoon, accompanying my father down the hall, we once again ran into Jan. “Didn’t we meet you yesterday?” asked my Dad. Good try. I suggested to him that it had been just that morning.
Jan’s son, John, who happened to be visiting her, accompanied her down the hall. We introduced ourselves, yet I felt I already knew John.
After all, we could both recite Jan’s fondest stories.