Guts & a
Girdle
by
Josefina
Loza
[click once on photo to enlarge]
Boots
Hogate,
87, of Papillion, became a stewardess for American Airlines back
in 1947.
Her collection of airline memorabilia includes her stewardess
uniform and her late husband's pilot uniform.
About
Boots:
>
Boots was a
tyke when she was nicknamed after a TV character.
>
She's never
used her given name. Most people don't even know what it is.
She wouldn't let us print it.
>
She was an
American Airlines stewardess with a 21-inch waist in 1947.
>
Her
husband, Earle, was a pilot and her daughter, Debbie, was a
stewardess for American Airlines.
>
All three
of their wing pins are framed and mounted on her memorabilia
wall.
>
Even though
she retired after a year, Boots was still able to travel the
world. She's been to dozens of locations
from Greece to Japan to Hawaii.
>
She has
four children, seven grandchildren and seven
great-grandchildren.
>
She moved
from
Chicago
to the Omaha area five years ago to be closer to Debbie.
>
She still
drives back to
Chicago
to see friends twice a year. Alone.
>
When she
flies, she books her flights on American.
For the first time in 64
years, Boots Hogate was able to relive the excitement and
glamour of serving as an airline flight attendant.
Vicariously, at least.
A new ABC show this
fall, "Pan Am," has rekindled memories for the 87-year-old
Papillion great-grandmother.
Boots wasn't with Pan Am,
though. She flew American Airlines. And the scene wasn't New
York City in 1963. For her, it was a booming 1947 Chicagoland,
long before the golden age of jet travel.
But the enthusiasm was just
the same, she said.
It was a profession that
required compassion, devotion and showmanship. Neatly pressed
suits, matching heels, handbags, gloves and gentle smiles were
all part of the package.
"And the girdle," Boots joked.
"We had frequent checks. At all times, we had better be
wearing the girdle."
Pan Am' got it right," said
the petite woman with champagne-colored hair. The show
appropriately showcases an era when getting your wings and
flying was momentous.
Hogate's late husband,
Earle, was a pilot for American Airlines. It's how they met.
And their daughter, Debbie, was a stewardess for the airline
during the 1960s.
As a kid, Boots would gaze at
the sky to see propeller planes flying over her small West
Virginia home. They were beautiful steel machines that traveled
the world. That's what she wanted to do.
In those days, it was
customary for young women to go to school, marry and start
families. Boots wanted more than to be a homemaker. She was a
spitfire, a real go-getter with a bubbly personality who easily
made friends.
Much of her outlook on life
changed shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in
1941. She was nearing high school graduation and knew the war
would place her stewardess career on hold. Regardless,
she decided to pursue education that would give her an edge once
airlines began hiring air hostesses again. Women who wanted to
be stewardesses needed either two years of college or nurses
training.
After getting her high school
diploma in 1942, Boots became a Red Cross nurse's aide. She
received training at a Charleston, W.Va., hospital and helped in
war efforts.
World War II was in full
throttle. And nurses were in high demand.
She relieved local nurses and
assisted the sick by making beds, readjusting bandages
and serving food and water, among many other duties.
Then a bright-eyed,
22-year-old brunette, Boots also worked at Carbon Chemical Corp.
in Charleston. It wasn't quite the lofty position she
had once hoped for, but she pressed on for nearly two years.
One day, Boots received an
invitation to join a friend in Washington, D.C., to campaign for
U.S. Sen. Claude Pepper of Florida. He asked Boots what she
wanted to do with her life.
I want to be a stewardess, she said. He called a
friend, the president of Capital Airlines, to make
introductions.
"Is she material?" the man
asked.
"Oh, yes," Pepper said.
"Material," she thought. What
exactly is expected of a stewardess?
She was offered a place
in flight school but didn't follow through. She had developed
some sort of fungus on her right thumb and refused to go. For
flight attendants, she had learned, appearance was
everything. She was embarrassed about her discolored
hand.
She took a train to
Minneapolis, where her parents had relocated, to have a doctor
look at it.
Boots eventually found a job
and moved in with friends. One of her roommate's friends shared
the stewardess dream. She was a tall, buxom blond with
angelic features an ideal goddess of flight. She kept a
watchful eye on hiring airlines, in particular American.
When she heard the company was
taking applicants in their city, she immediately told Boots.
"She had been waiting for them
for so long," Boots recalled.
Interview day came, and her
girlfriend was the first in line. She went through strenuous
weight, height, vision, experience, background and personality
checks. A typical stewardess stood between 5-foot-2 and
5-foot-5 and weighed no less than 100 pounds. Women had to be
tall enough to reach overhead compartments and slender enough to
slip by in a plane aisle. Many were interviewed, but few were
hired.
Boots hadn't rushed in. She
was still at home when her friend called.
"Don't bother," the
friend told her. "I don't feel I got to first base with them."
Boots took that as something
of a challenge. She glanced at the clock. What's there
to lose? She reviewed the qualifications checklist and went to
the interview.
"Physically, I was a wreck,"
she said.
She barely met the height
requirement standing 5-foot-1 and Ύ inch and weighed 90
pounds. The doctor administering the evaluations glanced at the
scale, then back at Boots. Her heart sank.
She was too distracted to notice that he had plopped his foot on
the scale to add a few more pounds.
"See you weigh 100 pounds," he
said, drawing a smile.
"I was the only one they took
that day," Boots said. "(My friend) was well-qualified.
Apparently, I wasn't as uptight as her and spoke with ease."
A week later, Boots started
flight school in Ardmore, Okla. She was a
ball of nerves and at times felt way out of her league. She had
never flown and still wasn't sure she was flight
attendant material.
"We were all nervous," she
said. "It was a job that so many people were seeking. We were
all petrified that we wouldn't make it."
Getting accepted to stewardess
school was only half the battle. The women had another round of
cuts to survive. In each class, several of the students were
sent home for not quickly picking up the material.
Training was conducted in old Army barracks. The women learned
grooming. They were taught how to put on makeup. Hair couldn't
touch the collar. Only one piece of jewelry was allowed. They
were taught how to walk in high-heels, how to properly greet
passengers and how to serve dinner trays.
One of their duties was to
clean the captain's microphone with rubbing alcohol, Boots said.
Only the most promising
graduated.
"We all wanted our wings so
badly," Boots said.
Boots studied flight routes
and city codes (such as OMA, for Omaha) in the wee hours of the
morning. The women had a 10 p.m. curfew. So Boots would sneak
a flashlight under her covers to squeeze in a few more
study hours. The women were also trained to be compassionate to
first-time fliers and were told to sit next to them.
"You have to remember that
back then, flying wasn't as common as today," Boots said. "It
was expensive. So most people took the train."
Flight safety was important,
especially since she traveled in a small DC-3 aircraft. The
tight quarters only allowed for a pilot, co-pilot and stewardess
to tend to a dozen or two passengers.
Boots was sent to Chicago for
her first assignment. Two weeks later, she met Earle. And, a
year later, the couple married.
"I flew from coast to coast.
Boston, New York, Dallas and the
South," she said.
"You couldn't be married and
be a stewardess at that time, "Boots said. "So I left."
She hung up her wings for good
to become a housewife. She didn't regret the decision.
Marriage was the goal for many "stews."
"If you were still flying
after five years," she joked, "then something was wrong with
you."
