SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to the Ponyon Podcast, brought to you by the Ponyon Museum in Garden City, New York. This podcast in our museum is dedicated to celebrating the legacy of the world's most iconic airlock, Pan American World Airways. My name is Tom Betty, and I'm the host of this program. Thank you for joining us. This program is sponsored by the generous support of Mr. Adam Aaron, the CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Incorporated. The Panam Museum Foundation is a nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information at the Panamuseum.org. Again, our website is thePanamuseum.org. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. If you are using Apple Podcasts, please consider leaving a review. It will help others discover this program. If you're not familiar with Pan Am, welcome. We are honored to have you here, and for you to learn about what we're all about. If you already know of Pan Am, worked for, or flown on the airline, or just love our history, it's good to be with you again. So with that, let's get this episode in the air, so to speak. Welcome aboard your Pan American jet clipper. In this episode, we are joined by Barbara Sharfstein, a veteran Pan Am flight attendant. Barbara joined Pan Am in 1951, and after 35 years of service with the airline, as a flight attendant, purser, check purser, and 747 in-flight director, she was transferred to United Airlines in 1986 when the Pacific Division was sold. She then worked for United for another six years before retiring in 1992. When first hired, Barbara traveled on board several groundbreaking and innovative aircraft. The Convair CV-240, the Lockheed Constellation, the DC-4, and most memorably, the Boeing 377 Stracruiser. Barbara flew to numerous international destinations and was based in many of Pan Am's divisions throughout her career, but she most fondly remembers working the fabled Round the World flights, Clipper001 and Clipper002. During her aviation career flying around the world working for the airlines, Barbara also found great success in San Francisco real estate when she was not on duty in the air. Her crowning achievement was the development of a one-acre parcel of land in the Twin Peaks neighborhood of San Francisco into a division of 20 condos. Many say it has one of the best views of the city. Today, Barbara volunteers with the San Francisco International Airport Aviation Museum. As a volunteer, she enjoyed sharing her stories and lending her time ever since the international terminal was rebuilt in 2000. Additionally, she served as the editor of World Wings International San Francisco chapter newsletter, having excelled in that position for the past 25 years. Barbara currently resides in San Francisco. Thank you for coming on the Pan Am podcast, Barbara.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Oh, you're very welcome.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

It's lovely to be talking to you. Thank you. So you were a flight attendant. You were hired by Pan Am in 1951. Why did you want to become a flight attendant?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

I had not thought about that. I was out of college and I was uh working uh as a well I didn't just one part of my college was a summer semester living with a Mexican family. It was a branch of the uh University of Mexico in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico. And uh I lived with a Mexican, wonderful Mexican family and who did not speak English. So my Spanish was very good. And I was back home now out of school, out of my regular college at home, and working for as uh helping them do translations and because my Spanish was pretty good, which was thanks to the fabulous people I was living with and the school I was well summer school I was at, was a three-month school called um Escuela de Verano Interamericano, that was the name of the school I down there I was at. I was I went with no expectations of being hired. I thought you had to look like a movie star. But a friend of mine and I who had been with me at the same uh school, and she was uh also was down in Mexico with me. Uh so she taught me into going, and I did not tell my parents what I was going for. I told them I was going on a vacation. In fact, we took a train down there, and I got down and they heard our Spanish, and we were both hired in about 10 minutes. So that's all I can tell you about being hired. But then we had to have a physical, and then we went back home and broke the news to family and to my boss, Sarah. He said I could come back if I wanted to work, but I didn't. I said, No, I think I'm gonna like this job. And that's how it started. What did your family say when you came home and my were in my little world, actually, then they had moved to Wilmet. They had moved to Wilmette, Illinois. I was growing up in Chicago, but they were there in Illinois. Where I was, nobody did that. You don't leave home when you're not married. You know, that's how it was. They were shocked. But they were they were very uh understanding, and I have to say they were wonderful parents. And um they did not object. I they just did not object. I just said, listen, this is I was 21, I was ready to go out into the world. And they said, Well, okay. That's how it was. They were very supportive of me.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

And why did you choose Pan Am over some of the other airlines?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I never thought about even being a flight attendant. Or I actually when I was hired, we were were called stewardesses, and I always loved that term. I never I didn't even like f flight attendant when I first heard it. Now I'm more used to it after it was changed, but I never thought about it of any airline. I didn't even know where Pan Am flew at the time I from Chicago. I whoever I didn't even know I thought they went to Havana. That's all I knew. But I didn't even think about any other airline because nobody said, let's go and try and get hired by another airline.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

So 1951, you got hired by a pan American. Walk us through what happened next.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I had uh several very interesting, one very sad one. Another gal that was also in school with us uh down there, she was at a different college uh university, but you know, back in sh the uh Chicago area. But she came down three months after uh my friend and I were hired, and we were living in a house with five of us, five flighted with three bedrooms, and we played musical beds that's because we were all each out flying somewhere. We never were in the same we didn't even worry about sheets at that age, didn't we changing anything? We were just very young ladies starting out in our lives. And uh my friend came down and stayed with us, and three months after she came, she was on a stratacruiser flight from I think it was Rio, going non-stop to Miami or New York, I can't remember, but unfortunately that airplane crashed in the Brazilian jungle and she was killed. So this was a horrible experience for me. I'm it was just I had just uh I wasn't even 22 yet when this well I was, yes, it was uh it was in 1952. That's right. It was just past uh it must have been April or May.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

For our listeners, Barbara is discussing Pan Am Flight 202, a Boeing 377 straticruiser named Clipper New Hope, that crashed in the Amazon basin on April 29th, 1952. The accident happened shortly after departure from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, en route to the first scheduled stop in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Tobago, the final destination of this flight was New York. All 50 people on board were killed, 41 passengers and nine crew members, in what was the deadliest ever accident involving the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. The investigation took place under exceptionally difficult conditions in the jungle, and the exact cause of the crash was never established. However, it was theorized, based on the examination of the wreckage, that the number two engine had separated in flight after propeller blade failure and debris likely penetrated the fuselage, causing a catastrophic in-flight breakup.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

It was a terrible crash. And uh that was a really hideous experience. My parents came down. They they knew her parents. I mean, we were all friends. It was just a horrible experience. Then, but then I I put that in a book um because uh one of our vice presidents, ex-vice presidents of the Pan Am, who's written a book, he wrote a book about experience. I think it's called um what is it called? It's called.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yes, the book is titled Pan American World Airways Aviation History Through the Words of Its People by James Patrick Baldwin, Jeff Krinler, and Leslie Giles. To our listeners, there's a link in the episode description to purchase this book.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So Jeff Krinler, former Pan Am Vice President of Corporate Communication, called you up and he asked me to write that story plus and then I he knew this other wonderful story that was happened that same year, so I did that one as well. But it it was interesting because uh at that time in the early 50s, I was on a flight where we ended up in Valem, Brazil, that was the closest point to where the crash site was. They were this vice president was on board, Humphrey Toomey was his name, uh, one of the vice presidents at that time. And he told uh my purser, I was the stewardess, my purser and I, what he was going to do. There was going to be a meeting of the search committee that were going in to search the jungle. They were jungle experts from all over the Americas, South America, North America. And they were gonna go on a trip to find the airplane. They had to find what happened to this airplane. They had spotted it. The day I left on that trip, and that trip was going all the way down to Buenos Aires, but it was on a DC-4. A Pen Am had two flights that went that far, and one of two different aircraft that went that far. One was the Stratocruiser, the other was the DC-4, which made every stop imaginable. And so, but there was only a couple of weeks, so that's why uh I spent quite a bit of time in Belem Brazil going down and on the DC four. So uh he said there was going to be a meeting of the uh of the crew that they're putting together, and my cursor, Norm Reynolds was his name, he said after Mr. Toomie sat back down in his seat, he said, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna crash that meeting and I'm going on that trip. I said, What can you do? He said, Well, I can cook and I can camp and they're gonna need me. When I went back to a day or two later to get on the airplane, I didn't I hadn't seen Norm the whole time. He said, Where is the other flight attendant? I said, I don't know. And then we realized I was gonna run this flight by myself. But he but um Mr. Toomey said, Do you need some help? I said, Yes. I always thought all these vice presidents were billionaires, so I'm sure he never carried a tray, but he he measured right up and helped me, and I whispered, Oh, I think I'm this is too much for you. You might want to anyway. He he he measured up and he did a great job and helped me get through that trip, which was not easy considering what was happening with that my wonderful cat Bonaghan. But uh that was uh that was that. And my condolences about your friend Oh, it was a it was well, we were both the same age. We were twenty two. I mean, it was just terrible, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Did you ever have doubts about uh the profession that you were in after your friend was killed in the By the time this happened, I I I was I couldn't even think about anything for a little bit, but I decided I want I like the job.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I was gonna stick it out. My parents came down to see how I was doing, and we we all had to pack up cat's things and you know get it back to her place. I thought about it, but I decided I liked the job so much I was gonna continue doing it. I was never afraid on the airplane ever, I can tell you. I was never felt like I was gonna crash. Uh but no, every s I just stuck with it. Uh but later that year, that same year before I was involuntarily transferred to New York Latin American Division, uh about a year after I started. But in 1952, which is after uh about April or May or something, I had a flight on the Stratacruz. That was the same airplane that I loved so much that the same kind of an airplane that was. And in I was handling the uh passengers in the lower lounge. That airplane had a had bunks where passengers would climb up a little ladder we'd wheel down the aisle. They get up on their bunks and go to bed. They can, and then the other passengers could go downstairs. There was like a downstairs in the bunks up above the where the baggage goes now. And uh I was handling the lounge down below. And there's Louis Armstrong with about four of his bags down there, and and they're talking to a few other passengers that were there. Some of the ones upstairs had already gone into their bunks. Others were in their seats that didn't have bunks that were, you know, stretching out a little bit. And the his band guy, and they were all talking, they were kidding a little bit, but they were saying, Oh, we wish we had our instruments. Well, in the down in the lounge, right next to the bar, there was a door into the baggage area. And we actually, there was a cup a couple of extra liquor kits there we could get to if we needed. But there was also this rope w a rope fence that you with a clasp, and you could see the bags through the rope. And the guy, I said, Well, well, you know, just a minute, take a look at this. So I opened the door here. I'm only I'm just casting my six-month um probation. I mean, I think I could have been fired for what I did, but I had to look through this mesh curtain. I said, Do you see anything that looks like your instruments? Oh my god, yes, they said they saw something. And they found there's something. So pretty soon. Louie is singing and they're playing, and and passengers are hearing this music, and they're coming down the stairs. And little by little, pretty soon, all it's a circular seating area. Then there's a step to get into that seating area. So now they're in the all the the whole all the seats are taken. Now all the steps, the steps up to the seats are taken. Now all the steps of the stairway is taken, and people are on the floor. There, I mean, it was ridiculous, but I'm squished up against the wall with passengers passing. I helped make a drink, and they're helping me make a drink, and they're passing them down to the other passengers. Everybody's working practically in that down there. Meanwhile, the captain was asking the purser, was something going on? He could tell some movement from the cockpit. And uh later he told me I was could have been in a lot of trouble if the lounge hadn't been in the middle of the fuselage because they have the weight and balance of their funny. But but everybody, they got all kinds of realizing clear about it, that everybody loved it so much that they'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. It was one of those things.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah, the concert in the sky with Louis Armstrong.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

It was just amazing. It was an amazing adventure, yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Before we go on, let's explore for a moment the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, which Pan Am was the launch customer and was in service with the airline from 1949 to 1961. For most of this time, this aircraft was the largest commercial aircraft in flight. The design was based on the wartime Boeing C-97 Strato Freighter, military transport, itself a derivative of the B-29 Super Fortress. The Stratocruiser had many innovative features, including two passenger decks and a pressurized cabin. It could carry up to 100 passengers on the main deck, plus 14 in the lower deck lounge. Typical seating was for 63 or 84 passengers, or 28 berthed and five seated passengers. The Pan Am Museum outside of New York City has a permanent exhibit dedicated to the Boeing 377 Straticruiser. Let's take a quick listen to a 1950 Pan Am promotional film on the Straticruiser.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Throughout the trip, you'll find little touches that make you feel more like a special guest than a passenger. At dinner time, a seven-course meal is served from the ship's galley, the largest and most efficient flying kitchen in the world. Your dinner may be turned up with production line efficiency, but it's a meal that any housewife would be underserved. And you couldn't be more comfortable in your own dining room. With service like this, a trip by Pan American dinner is something more than the shortest distance between two points. It's more than the fastest, safest way to travel. It's a pleasure in itself. And your neighbor's reading light is suggested someone to disturb your rest. The evening wears off. The bridge game has averaged over 300 miles to a run. You see, the clipper passenger is tight to see. There's plenty of room to move around. And for a complete change of view, you can even go downstairs. Flying five miles above the earth, you go one fight down. The clipper's lower deck line. Here in the flat social atmosphere, you can think of Breathing space in your trip and get to know your fellow passengers a little more informal. If you're traveling on business, you welcome the relaxation that you find here. And if you're on a holiday, a luxury like this makes the plane flight part of your vacation. You may be ending the evening with a nightclub, while above deck, your berth is being made up for. At night, many of the clipper seats convert into wide, comfortable sleepers, and a really spacious dressing room helps you get ready for bed.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

So, Barbara, getting back to your story, where did you go after 1952?

SPEAKER_01 22:53

I went to New York then, and I flew for two what about three years out of New York. And then I transferred because I thought I'm going to now I'm going to go to uh see Asia, which I transferred to San Francisco. And I did, and I spent the rest of my career with Tan Am and with United too in uh uh San Francisco, which I loved living there. I always told everybody that I'm glad I wasn't hired there. I might never have left. That's how much I like San Francisco, actually. And um, so and and if you that's so that's about when I started. And I can tell you if uh the jobs I had while I was with Pan Am, as I say, I started as a stewardess, and within a year I was a purser, uh, which means you're pretty much in charge of the documentation. Uh we never were it we in the early days there was no money involved because everything was free to passengers. They didn't start charging until much later. Um, but it was a job. I we had trips that were very long. We had that DC4 trip down to Buenos Aires, making all the stops, was a 23-day trip. I've come back from that and I'd say, now when do I do this again? I thought that was such a neat experience, you know. But um the it was a great, it just seemed like I was in another world. It was so one such a wonderful job. But uh when I got to uh San Francisco, oh my jobs were started out as a stewardess and a purser. Then uh they asked me to be a check purser, was to check out new pursers because they they really didn't have a training class, but they would have you explain what they do or a little bit, and then you'd take them out on trips and make sure that they understood. It got more complicated when money was started being involved because you were selling headsets for the movies when the movies came. And then we oh later on we started selling drinks in the economy section. So we'd be having the uh that be in charge. In fact, towards the end of my flying with Pan M, we um had a bar card, we were selling duty free. And we were but this is before they were uh Pan M. I United started using credit cards much before Pan M did. Uh, but Pan M was still using cash for the duty free, and I would end up going to ending up in Narita after a trip. I could have $10,000 in my pursuit kit.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I would be walking over there to behind the uh ticket counters, I'd go back to an office to drop off the money, and I'd be thinking, gosh, somebody could, if they knew what I was carrying, I could be in trouble. I'm reading that.

SPEAKER_04 26:09

A lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

But it was uh anyway, I was then uh when the 747s came, in fact, that was then uh also at that time, I was became a flight direct, an in-flight director, is that what they call us? An in-flight director. And that's because it was a brand new airplane that was in the 70s, in 70, I think it was when they first came. So they had that position. Um, so those are my jobs. And then I went back to Pursner after they didn't need that anymore because the personers were uh all checked out and knew what to do. So that's what we did.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

And which airplanes did you fly on?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Oh, I'll tell you what airplanes. When I started in Miami, I had four airplanes that I was checked out on. By the way, every airplane we're checked out on, we're checked out on the emergency equipment and what to do if there's an emergency. And we had tests every for a while it was every six months, and then it became every year. I think we changed it to that. Um, and we the first airplanes I flew on were the conveyor, it was a two-engine airplane that went to Havana and back and maybe a couple of the islands, the Caribbean. Then there was um the constellation, which we call the Connie constellation, and of course the Boeing and the DC four. Those were the four. Later on in the 60s, they had the um, first we then we had uh oh, and then later, even in the 50s, we had uh start getting DC sixes, DC sevens, and we got jets in 60, uh the um uh yeah, the jets in 60, and we and then we had uh oh another form of jets. I I know my my my memory gets a little hazy there, but I know and then we had uh then we had uh the A320s, A320s, which is the Airbus. We were flying those. And we had the 737, uh every airplane, and then the 747s. There was a 747 something at the very end that also uh enhanced 747 that I flew on as well. But I flew on every aircraft that uh I mean every type of aircraft that Pan Am and had. Oh, and then the L oh at the end the L1011. That's was my last flight was on with Pan M, was on the L1011 Lockheed airplane. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

I'm guessing the Stratocruiser was your favorite plane. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Oh, yes. I always tell people that even though I had that terrible experience with my roommate, that airplane was my all-time favorite airplane to work on. It was so wonderful. The beginning it was all first class. And it was, um, and you know, at that age, the rich and famous uh did not have their corporate jets. They flew with us and TWA as well. They flew with us, and we were practically the only, you know, international airline. We had no domestic flights at all at that time. And uh so it was very they later they you know changed it and they had uh towards the end, but they had that airplane was a wonderful, it was a wonderful airplane.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Can you uh help us imagine it? Uh can you describe like the meal service and what it looked like?

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Oh, Pan Am from the first when I was hired in 1951, we had a six-week training course, and we were served the meals that they served in first class and shown how to do it. The meal service, it was nobody has ever, I can't even add even on the uh new ones that um come out of Arabia. I I don't know anyone that can do it on the cart. We would have caviar and smoked salmon and uh uh prosciutto and and prosciutto and melon and quail legs, I mean, on the cart. I mean, I had one experience with a gentleman traveling without his wife, but with his two sons, I think they were eight and ten or something, and one is sitting with him, the other is sitting behind him with another caviar. And as I'm coming down the aisle, there the kids are saying yuck when they see the caviar. And his father's trying to tell them to try it. Don't just say yuck, just try it. Later, he came back to the galley and said, I have to apologize for my kids. He says, But I want them to someday want to eat those things, to afford to eat those things, that's what he said. And I because I thought that was such a fun experience with, you know, to see how kids would react to something. But our service was gorgeous. And uh our our um uh stewards that were came from with the early flying I had that came from the uh flying boats. A lot of them, some of them most of them were European, not a number of them were European, and they would do that cart so beautifully. I would love watching them, and I'd I want to do it like they did it. And they were, it was just wonderful to see how they did that. And I did have one, oh, in fact, I have a menu that I'm going to, I just found it. Going through, you know how you gather papers, and I was under papers that I'd stacked on top of it. It was a menu from the 1960s, it doesn't have the actual date on it, but it was a it was from a um, it was different from any other menu Pan M I've ever seen on Pan Am. And I don't know if they did it on other Thanksgivings, but it was printed up like Sanskrit or whatever, or uh parchment in a rolled-up scroll with a ribbon on it, and it told a story of the first Thanksgiving, which is, you know, kind of a made-up story, but it was a very beautiful story with yeaves and whatever. And uh they told me the day before the flight that I was going to be, we we all the we served Chateaubriand and filet mignon and rack of lamb and pork. We served everything on the cart that we carved with a carving knife, and right from the first day I ever started with with uh Pan Ab. But never a turkey. And as I say, I had certainly never carved a turkey. I was having nightmares about it the day before. And uh fortunately, a passenger seeing, I think he saw my hands shaking with the knife and fork ready to try to carve this. I thought it was gonna fly off the cart and land in somebody's lap, but he said he hadn't carved, he hadn't been not, he hadn't missed a Thanksgiving with his family in years, and said, Can I do that? I said yes. So I got on the other end of the cart and he came and went through. He he was obviously a wonderful extrovert and fabulous man. And talking to everybody, it was the most delightful experience it was.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

And that um that that picture is a fave, famous, very famous picture. If you Google Thanksgiving Pan Am, there's this gentleman that has this entire turkey in front of him and he's carving it. And I wonder if this is the same flight.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Oh, I anyway it was. I can only tell you that what I plan to do, I've you know, I I'll tell you that what I do now is I have a job, um, a volunteer job at the SFO Aviation Museum. So I'm a volunteer there, docent, and um I am going, I've given them any bit of paraphernalia I have, but I found the menu of that flight buried under a bunch of papers. I've got it right now stretched out on a very heavy book to get the creases out. Unfortunately, I think I ruined the almost ruined the scroll, but it's not ruined. But I'm gonna give it to the museum so they'll have it uh whenever they want to use it. But that is so interesting. I never saw anything like that on a film.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Never. I'll email it to you.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

If that's uh if that well, it could be, because he was so wonderful. He walked right through talking to everybody, and I was got on the other end to get up the side dishes, which were all it was all they they tried to do it as authentically as they thought it would be if that a in the 19 in uh 1620 or whenever that date was.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

We're going to take a quick break with a Pan Am commercial from 1982.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

In 1935, only one airline, Pan Am stood poised on the edge of America, ready to challenge the Pacific. And today, the mighty clippers of Pan Am Rise were just a claim from six months and farming.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Welcome back to our interview with Pan Am Flight Attendant Barbara Sharksteen. So I also wanted to ask you about any memorable experiences flying for Pan Am or United that you'd like to share with us.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Um, well, I'll just tell you, flying with United, uh, they were really um very nice to me. Uh I I thought they were very nice to me and to my friends and that went with us. It was very hard leaving Pan American because they were like part of my family. I can't tell you the affection uh that I felt felt for Pan and but I think we are still stay very connected, all of us, from every department. Um but our flight attendants, we have World Wings, which is our uh group. The pilots have their Clipper Pioneers, which is their group. Now they're they invite everybody to their things. We can't invite everybody to our uh conventions because we have too there are so many more of us than them. But but um uh we still have quite a large number of uh I think a couple thousand of us from from uh all over the world because we have people from all places in Europe and Asia. We've had conventions from uh from every place in Europe and in Asia, Tokyo and Bangkok, Hong Kong, I mean every place. So we are uh we raise a lot of money for charity. What we do, well I can tell you that now. I don't know, but it's not the right time to tell you. But no, please do. We raise money. Uh our uh main charity, the international charity is now Doctors Without Borders. But we've changed those to we had the uh a deaf charity for one part, and and actually the last charity we had was CARE, which focused on third-world women, focusing on um lending them money so they could go into business and get better lives. That's what we were doing for a number of years before that uh deaf group. I mean, we've had different international charities that help people all over the world. Uh now uh but every chapter has its own charities, um uh local charities. Ours right now are the uh homeless women and children. And that's one of them in San Jose, and and then we have the uh hospice on the peninsula, and we have the uh the uh animals, ASP ASPCA. And uh so that's so we get together a lot, and I we're the only airline that has a group that stayed together for so long. Nobody can understand it. There was an article written in a magazine that wondered how uh a company that has been gone for so many years can still have the love and reverence for their employees. If corporate America could figure it out, they'd they'd put it together and just bottle it and sell it or something. I think that was in a magazine because no other company has goes out of the bank goes bankrupt, goes out of business, which was like the death of a relative, also. You know, when it went out. Even after I was with United, when it went out, it was just terrible. But anyway, with United, I had I had very good trips with United, and I have to say they were very nice to me. Uh, it was a very interesting getting into a different airline that was so different from us. But it's the same. There are wonderful people and a few not so wonderful, just like any other airline or any other company. So it was just great.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Did you have a favorite place that you like to go visit on trips?

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Everybody asks me that. What was your favorite city? Where was your favorite place? But I can't tell you uh because every place that we went had something different. I I love history of in London. I loved Paris. I mean, for Paris. And I I loved um Hong Kong for shopping. I'm sick about what's happening in Hong Kong now after being there so many times. The beauty of going back and forth was we I if we didn't do something one time, we're there, we do it the next time. We've got to see everything and do everything in these places. Um, I fell in love, I became in the Middle East, I absolutely fell in love with the kilns and the uh meditation squares, and uh I became uh a textile freak. That's what they would call me, a textile freak. In Japan, I turned into a bonsai freak. I learned how to make them and I was doing them for a while for everybody, and I had a I was uh having them shown at a museum for the for their um they would have dignitaries coming in at the Asian. So I mean I did a lot of things. It was flying, I loved every where I went well, but um I have to tell you now San Francisco's my favorite city in the world, and I'm so happy just to live here.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

And did when did you move to San Francisco?

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Um, it was about 55, 56, 1956, 55, I think it was. And stayed here ever since. And I was renting for a long time and then flying, and the I'd say for the next 10 years, I was just having flying a lot and having a wonderful life, a very wonderful social life. Um, and then I did started doing something, but I had a week, I would have long trips and make have hours that uh I used, and then I'd have a week off sometimes, five days, six days off, and between flights, because these flights were long. Uh and decided I wanted to do something beside. Besides what I was doing, I felt like I should be more wanted to be more productive in a business like way. So a friend I I don't know if you want me to get into this part of my life.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Sure, please.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

So a friend of mine and I decided I've I started thought at that time this was in the early 70s when inflation was rampant and it was getting more and more uh there and I thought I'm gonna buy a house now. And I was looking around and I could have you could buy a house for fifty, sixty thousand dollars and with a little down payment, you I could have done that. Um and then I thought, no, somebody said something that I shouldn't be renting. I'd never owned my own house ever, you know, since because I was always felt like I was gonna move somewhere because I moved already several times from uh Miami to New York, San Francisco. Uh they said, no, no, you shouldn't be renting anymore. So I said, okay. And uh we I put a down payment, or I didn't even put it, I but I put a bid in on a house and I got it for I think under $50,000, a three-bedroom house in Marilloma Park, which is in San Francisco. And uh ran into a friend on the stair, neighbor, and another flight, fellow flight attendant who I'd flown with a number of times and socialized with and who I knew fairly well, and told her what I had done. And she said, Do you want a partner? I told her what I was planning to do. I said, Well, do you want to see the house first? And she said, Not necessary. We she just wanted to. She had the same urge to do something like that, but they they call it flipping now. We put we decided to do this to do a renovation. We called it a renovation at that time. And uh we whatever it was we made every mistake you could make. But we I tell my nieces and nephews, now grandnieces and nephews, um, I always tell them to dream your dream, but don't quit your day job. Well, flying was kind of like my day job at that time, although I still loved it as my main job, as a matter of fact. And uh we the first house, we did everything wrong, and we called it because we made it too beautiful where it was, and hired workers that weren't licensed or something, and I mean tried to sell it by ourselves. If we'd found somebody to buy it, we wouldn't have known what to do. So now we we get into the next well, we decided it was an aesthetic success. It was definitely not a financial success. But then we went on, continued on, never mind, wasn't successful the first time. And then we were very successful for a few months. And then we bought this lot in the city, right near where we lived, where I lived. I I lived by myself at that time, and she did too, another apartment in the building, and we ended up buying a lot that was for sale very close to where we lived, and happened to be right under the lookout point of uh where the Suto Tower is in San Francisco, you know the city. And uh we bought it and went through 11 hearings with a neighborhood uh organization who had been successful against five other people with bids trying to buy it. We were successful in having our bid accepted, which was a very low bid because of inf I mean, and nobody would and the interest rates at that time were 21% prime and prime and it was prime plus two points for construction loans. So we ended up nobody was building. But we got the land. We went through two and a half years of uh city and city uh planning commission, and uh we did it because I think we got it because uh it was as my father once said to me, because the smartest people he knew were the ones who who knew they didn't know everything, you know, and didn't try to say they know anybody that they knew something they didn't know. And he was right because while we're asking them what do we do next, other people are telling them what they're gonna do, you know, the the professionals. So they helped write our presentations. We didn't, we did, we uh, I won't say they call us developers, but we were actually ended up at we took it through uh the uh building permit stage, 11 hearings in front of the planning commission, and uh did our own presentations. But I have to admit, the planning department who are anxious for the revenue from new housing, you know, they want you to win, but they have to be very fair to everybody. And uh we ended up as uh joint venture partners, is what we did, because we had we certainly didn't have millions of dollars to build this these things, but we had everybody in the city wanted to be our joint venture partner, and we picked a couple of fabulous guys who were so honorable and wonderful, and um we ended up uh we didn't get an attorney, we couldn't afford an attorney even at that time. That's why we didn't have one helping us, and we were told we were the only ones to uh develop to to get these off the ground uh without an attorney handling the uh thing. So uh but we did hire one to make the contract with the joint venture partners, and uh we got a wonderful, they got a wonderful deal. And the best part of that was that our attorney that we hired after it was half built, he called us and said that because at first they wanted to give us all money, we were fainting on the floor when they told us what they wanted to get, but our attorney told us if we accepted he would quit. So um later he he he called us and said that he's still our attorney, but the guys that were our joint our partners wanted to hire him for another project that they were doing because they were very happy the way it turned out, too, because they didn't have to put up a lot of money. See, we did it in a different way. We they just they would owe us the money that they were paying uh offered us for this, and we we didn't get it until after it was finished, and uh we got everything back, all our money back, a little extra furniture money, and each of us a unit here in in uh with the best of you in San Francisco. I so that's that's what happened. But anyway, my experience with Pan M was fabulous, and I I feel like a very I'm a very fortunate person and I've had a wonderful life. And that's when people say, What's the best thing you ever did? And I think higher it being hired by Pan M was really a best thing. But there were so many things. I I just remember so many different incidences. We had a few close calls. I had the same problem that what they found out from that crashed uh uh stratocruiser was it turned out to be a runaway, what they call a runaway propeller. And I was on a flight on that airplane, and uh we found we were having the same problem. Uh so it was the the propeller when they a runaway propeller is a propeller that starts wavering instead of just going around, it's going back, it's slower, but it's go still going around a lot, but it's going back and forth too. So we evacuated everybody from the uh window where it would hit, because that's what they expected, that's what they think happened to that airplane in the Brazilian jungle. And uh we evacuated them, and then we were you know worried that it was, but they depressurized and went down, you know, got themselves below the uh place where it would depressurize. Uh and then we landed in Montevideo. We were going from on that airplane from Buenos Aires, that was going to go to Miami, uh, or to Rio, I think was gonna go to Rio and then on to uh Miami or New York. But um we landed and they um the mechanic, I'm sure he was exaggerating, but he said that the propeller practically came off in its hand, so it could have come off. And our biggest fear would it would definitely hit the fuselage. Oh, I have another story with passengers too. Um we did the Vietnam War. We during the Vietnam War, we went the tooth transports, and we also flew the uh RRs. And then we did the baby lift. I we brought back a lot of the babies, you know, from the Amorasian children that were left behind. Um and uh at the beginning we had a whole lot of babies in there and with a lot of people helping uh from their diplomat wives and all kinds of whoever they could get to just help with the kids, uh babies, some uh just because if they were just an airplane full of babies, some of them. But they were scattering them around other flights as they got to uh Manila and Guam. They would always go through from uh Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, to uh uh Manila, then they'd separate them into other airplanes that would another crew that would take them further, or they would take them as far as Guam and then get some more, separate them some more so we have a little more attention to the to the babies and the children. And um I had so sometimes I would pick them up in Guam, sometimes I'd pick up a flight with some of them in Honolulu. Well, I picked one group up in Honolulu, so amidst 20 babies and with four attendants helping them, were all these tourists, of tourists who didn't even know this war was going on. I tell you, they did not know that war was the secret war, I think, you know, except for all the a lot of commotion going on in these streets. But um, I got on the PA and I said, uh ladies and gentlemen, you might notice we have quite a number of babies here, and I would like to ask for volunteers to hold a baby for takeoff and landing. Don't worry. Um, you won't have to hold them out. Fly, we'll find something, we'll take care of that. Oh my gosh. I finally, five minutes later, I had to get on the PA and say, I have to apologize. I don't have any more babies, so give you. And I didn't want to give the babies back. It was it was so amazing, it makes me want to cry every time I think of that. Because I love these people so much. But it was, you know, these were these were the things that I I loved about we had terrible passengers too, though, believe me.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

So that was so you worked for Pan Am for almost 35 years in Panama.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Yes, I did. 30. I left the 36th year, yes. And the rest of the time I was with United till 92.

SPEAKER_00 56:49

What are some of your favorite uniforms? So you had several uniforms in your career at Pan Am.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

Yeah, the first one was the more military with that military-style hat, and then we had the bowler hats, and then we had uh a hat we could wear or not wear, and then we had I think I liked the last one we had the best. It was the one um was Navy and had a couple stripes on it for the showing that we were a flight attendant. You know, it was the engineer had three, and the others had so it was all I I enjoyed that uniform very much. I I liked all of them.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

What message do you have for some of the younger people that might be listening on why Pan Am history and the 34 years that you were with Pan Am was pivotal in Pan Am history? Why should it be important?

SPEAKER_01 57:49

I think a job like that can never be repeated, really. It's that's how important it was. As I said, what other job do you keep your friends after your job is finished? What other job can you say that about? Uh the fact that you can develop real lifelong relationships, it's like an afterlife of your work life, an afterlife, and that's what it is. I feel that we have we worked all and we had changed crews all the time. I I mean, when I tell you the people we met, the people we went, and every trip, it wasn't like we had an overnight and come right back. We were all the crews stayed in the same hotels. There was everybody got to know each other. It was uh a briefing beginning a flight. You start a trip with a briefing, you end the trip with the captain saying, My room in 10 minutes, and he'd have beer for everybody or something. And we talk about the trip. I mean, that happened virtually every single trip. You could ask the other pilots and flight attendants if that wasn't so true. At least it was certainly true with my flights. Um there were people I loved, there were a few people I didn't like at all. Oh yeah, you know, it that's what life's about. But basically, I loved every I love these people. They were all such great quality people. It was it was not like another job, like in any way. You you were with them on very long time, our trips to uh Hong Kong when we were starting them on the uh 7-4. We were go for 18 hours to get there, and sometimes we were on duty 22 hours because of weather in Hong Kong and Canton and in uh Okinawa, Naha, Okinawa, to all the places that were extra places we could land if we had to wait, but everything would be blocked. But sometimes we would land in um one of those places, and then there'd be no crew to replace us, so we'd be on duty for sometimes up to 22 hours. Yes, we had a little bit of rest facilities on these airplanes, but when you work like that with people, and then you go out and have dinner with them, and you have a few drinks with them, and you have, and you each everybody tells their stories about who they are, and uh so you you cannot meet people like that in another way. We used to laugh a lot about though about how different we were from the pilots, the flight attendants. We would laugh about this a bit. Because I have to say, the pilots were more into um, well, this doesn't work like my toilet at home because this is really bad, you know. Whereas we're wanting to go to the museums, you know. They're not finding the same charm that we'd be finding, you know, in in some of these places. And we joke about that a little bit because but they were we were all very good friends in the, you know. I don't there'd be no way to explain to people what this airline was like. No other airline had that experience. Pan Am opened mail, air mail to other countries. It opened the Pacific and Atlantic so that people didn't have to take a ship. They were the first ones. They flew, they turned into their whole airline was turned into Navy during World War II. I flew with those uh flying boat crews, the pilots and the stewards. They were all guys flying across the oceans. I think they may have had ladies flying to the uh Caribbean when they were doing those short flights on the uh flying boats. But on the long hauls, they were all guys, and they were really wonderful. Uh when they tell me the stories of what they could do, they would get up. I mean, uh I think ladies could have done it, but at that time, of course, they didn't think ladies could have done anything. So that's what I mean, not just Pam, but most men in general. I'll put it that way, at that time. But they would have to get up in the morning and uh and midway and go to the one store there, because they had a had to build a store for the workers there. All the workers and the people that contractors and building, oh my gosh, just getting those uh that deserted island, that uh unoccupied island ready was a story in itself that I heard many times. But they would go to the store, go shopping, get on the airplane, and fix the dinner for the next eight or nine hours to uh Wake Island and then on to do the same thing on to Guam. Uh in Honolulu, at least they had a port steward to fix the for them. But on those islands, they had to fix the meals on board before the passengers even got on, get them starting to get them ready for an eight or nine hour flight. So they had to do what I think the most amazing things. And I got to meet them. When I work in the museum, I I'm able to tell the visitors to the museum, that this is the the uh aeronautical museum at SFO, I'm able to tell them all the stories that these guys told me about the Goonie birds, that it was their entertainment with no television, of course, and they had a day, you know, staying in there. How everybody got off the airplane, passengers and crew alike, and and stayed in the hotel overnight. And then everybody got up the next day and those flying boats and continued on to across the Pacific. And they had a lot of places to land, you know, they had to go to Honolulu and Wake and Guam and Manila to get to Hong Kong. That was how that one went by. I I started flying five years after the last flying boat was finished. So I got to fly with all these people, and I love being able to tell all the wonderful stories that they told me to the visitors to our museum. So that makes my life very interesting, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

Indeed. Are there any of those stories that you'd like to share with our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

Just the the ones of the Goonie birds. Did I did you ever hear that term?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

Um I have.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

It's a it's what it is, it's uh from the albatross family. Family, the bird family's called albatross. And what these birds did, they had nothing that they'd get in. Um it was like from uh Honolulu to Midway. Oh, first let me just tell you what Midway was. Uh it was a desert, and island, I keep saying deserted, it wasn't deserted because nobody ever lived there. It was an unoccupied, no humanity there, uh island there, and they had a strange type of flora and fauna. And the fauna was the Goonie bird, which is this not but not the Alpha Truck, but a relative, let's say a very close relative of the Alpha Truff. And uh they sent uh uh one trip, the head of Pan Am. It was on a map, it didn't even have a name, but they finally gave it a name. And they uh can uh one trip sent a ship. I know this the uh guy who led the expedition on a uh sailing, you know, a ship over to uh midway to that island with a bunch of uh carpenters and workers to build a city, a city that they could. With a store and everything. And they built a terminal and the pier. The terminal uh and a hotel because they knew the passengers and crew would all have to get off. They didn't have the crews waiting for them there. No. This is because they only had two or three a week uh when they started. Maybe two a week at the very beginning. This airplane, by the way, I can tell you this about the airplane. It had a uh the flight took between um to get to Honolulu was between uh twenty-one and twenty-three hours in flight to get on on a uh it was on the um this is when they first started flying. No. This yes, on those first flying boats. On that boat, it took twenty-one to twenty I think the first flight was actually twenty-three hours. And but it was not a problem, but it only landed uh on on uh water, and they only took off and landed in daylight. They could not land that airplane at night because you never couldn't see what the surf was doing at that time, what the air ocean was doing. So they had to take off in the daylight and land in daylight. That's why they couldn't get across the Pacific without Midway Island. I tell half people that, and they're very surprised to know that. Um, because Midway made it possible because you could go from it was about a nine-hour flight from uh Honolulu to Midway, and you could take off early in the morning and get there before dark. And then you could go, then you they get up, everybody would get off the airplane and go to the hotel first in Manila, then to uh Wake Island, then to Guam, then to Manila, and Manila would have, of course, a uh port steward there to to take care of the uh food for them to get preparation. Later on, they were able to go the first flights they didn't even get to Hong Kong, they'd have to take some other British airplane to uh Hong Kong because they didn't have the landing rights to get in there. The Brits were very tough on us. We couldn't even go to across the Atlantic until 39. They got they went to um across the start of the Pacific flying in 35, and not till 39, 1939, could they go to across the Atlantic because the British were trying to have an airplane to complete. They worked on it and worked on it, and it never it never worked, so they finally let Tan M go in. It took them a while before they ever got anything to go across.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:45

That was so there is a museum on Long Island called the Pan Am Museum. Yes, there is a museum in Miami called uh History Miami, there's a museum at the San Francisco Airport uh where you volunteer.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

Uh in each of those museums, including others like the Flying Boat Museum at Foines in Ireland, and a couple others that I I I may have missed. How does that make you feel that these museums are paying tribute to a part of your life, 34 years of your life, uh when they feature Pan Am?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

I've been to all of those museums you mentioned. I still have a correspondence with Margaret O'Shaughnessy. And she's invited, been invited to my home here. She's planning to come one of these days. She promised she would. And uh I loved my trip to Florence, and I I was very honored to be recognized at uh the one in New York. I've been to the visited the one in Miami Springs. I think that's where it is, isn't it? In Miami Springs. Miami. And I love my job at FFO Aeronautical Museum. Um I I feel that it it it was the company I think this company should be recognized in some way. I mean I'm just so I was so sorry to see it fold up. I that was very disappointing in my life. Big disappointment. Because it shouldn't have happened. But you know, things happen there are many reasons for any things like that to happen. There are many reasons, and a lot of it was the terrorism that was going on, of course, at the time. And some of it was maybe some business decisions that were not so smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

Anything else you'd like to add about your experiences with Pan Am?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

No, I think I've talked too much, maybe, but oh no, this is great.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:07

I I thank you very much for your time. Well, Barbara, it is a pleasure talking with you, and I want to thank you for your time today on the Pan Am podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

Well, it was my pleasure to talk to you, and I hope you've got the information that you were looking for.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

Very much. Uh so thank you very much, and uh hope to uh meet you soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:35

You're welcome, and I'll look forward to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

Pan Am was a pioneer in air travel and still stands as one of the most iconic and innovative airlines in aviation history. That legacy lives on at the Pan Am Museum in Garden City, New York, where you can explore the rich history of the aircraft and individuals at the heart of the company known as the world's most experienced airline. For more information about the Pan Am Museum, check out our website at www.thepanmuseum.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. As was once a tagline in one of our commercials, we would greatly appreciate your support to help the Pan Am Museum continue making the going great. You can also support the museum by stopping on our online store for all things Pan Am accessories, apparel, jewelry, books, models, and posters. We want to hear from you. If you have a question for us or want to share your story, our email address is podcast at the Pan Ammuseum.org. As flight crews once said to passengers departing for their destinations around the world, thank you for flying, Pan Am.