Museum Newsletter

Board of Directors

Pam Blaschum-Director

Karen Holden Young-Early History

Ann Noland-Volunteer Coordinator

Nancy Sitzmann-Event Coordinator

Mary Ellen Miller- Member

John Mays-Library & Research

Chris Funk-Treasurer

Christopher Nold-Simulator & Scout Programs

______________________________

1937 Lockheed Electra (Ellie) Crew:

Ruth Richter-Owner

Captain Kirk McQuown-Pilot

Curt Walters-Pilot

________ _______________________

Archivists

Carol Emert, Archivist

Zana Allen John Mays

Martha Katz Mark Murtha

Richard Rees Joe Ballweg

________________________________

Volunteers

Chalberg, Larry McCarthy, Dennis

Coleman, John Morningstar, David

Conner, Carol & Dean Newberry, Nina

Dingman, Larry Rowe, Ray

Douglas, Yvonne Ruege, Frank Jr

Epperson, Keith Sheldon, Charlie

Gentry, Donna Shenefield, Judy

Hammer, Wayne Von Geyso, Frank

Kelley, Bill Wasko, Alice

Lhuillier, Janet Williams, Gwen

Lillge, Larry & Marcia Wilkins, Dona

Lint, Gary Wilson, Judy

Lujin, Art

From the Director Pam Blaschum. . .

“Time flies”. A most appropriate expres-sion often heard here at the museum. I’m not quite sure where the summer has gone, as it’s been a busy one for us. I’m excited to share some of the highlights with you.

In September, the museum became an aircraft owner for the first time, acquiring a Lockheed Jetstar. Back in the mid 1960s, TWA leased two of these business jet aircraft as part of their pilot training program. While our Jetstar is not one of those two, it does afford us the opportunity to share yet another important aspect of TWA history with our visitors. It’s in superb condition, both inside and out, and will reside permanently as a static exhibit at the museum. In addition to opening it up to our visitors, we plan to make it available to people or groups to rent for small meetings and events. The Jetstar joins the Wings of Pride (which is on loan to the museum) as live aircraft exhibits for our visitors to experience and enjoy while learning about TWA’s history.

Our visitor attendance this summer kept us all very busy. Among our attendees, we enjoyed hosting a group of 85 retired U.S. Navy veterans (and family) and a group of 50 young people from a summer youth program in Kansas City. Our volunteers and staff worked together to successfully coordinate these special visits. Our volunteers are great and make all our visi-tors feel very welcome, while being highly informative and helpful. We couldn’t ask for a nicer group of people and we invite you to consider joining us as a volunteer. We would love to have you. Our guides also established a presence on the internet, as we added the TWA Museum Guides Blog to our website. Articles covering some of our most popular exhibits are presented on an ongoing basis. With the capability of reaching a large and engaged audi-ence, the blog has received over 3,000 visits since its debut in late July.

July 17 marked the 20th anniversary of the Flight 800 tragedy. We hosted two lectures about the investigations into the accident. The first by award-winning journalist Kristina Borgesson and the other by author Jack Cashill. Both lectures were well-attended. While noting the past, we continue to look ahead and are planning enhancements to our very popular flight simulator exhibit. We also are looking into creating a unique exhibit commemorating TWA’s famous airport Ambassador Clubs. We have a large collection of items related to the Clubs that we plan to exhibit. In fact, we are on the lookout for the unique “etched globes” glass that graced the entrance of the Ambassador Club at St. Louis. If you have any information that can help us track it down, please let us know.

As autumn unfolds and the holidays get nearer, we anticipate an exciting and rewarding 2017 for the TWA Museum, our staff and visitors. We wish the same for all of you and your families.

November 2016

TWA Museum

10 Richards Road

Kansas City, MO 64116

816-234-1011

twamuseum@gmail.com

BSA Aviation Merit Badge The Boy Scouts now have an Aviation Merit Badge. We offer a program at our museum using the following agenda with good success that will satisfy at least 90% of the require-ments of the Aviation Merit Badge at our museum. The merit badge requirements and pamphlet can be viewed at http://troop75.us/files/MeritBadgeBooks/Aviation.pdf We have divided the requirements we use into five “activity modules” as follows, not necessarily in this order: 1. Lecture on aviation, aircraft, theory of flight, etc. cover-

ing Req. 1a thru 1e, 2c and 5, using audio-visual aids and charts in our “Scouts” lecture room.

2. Pre-flight check of a Cessna 152 or Piper trainer aircraft in the Signature hangar next to the museum, covering Req. 2b.

3. FPG-9 model glider project in the hangar, covering Req. 3b.

4. Fly a pre-determined course in our flight simulator, covering Req. 2d

5. Tour of our airline flight museum, covering Req. 4c. The program usually begins at 10:00 AM, plus 30 minutes of intro/outro/bathroom break/slippage, puts the ending time before 3:00pm. This agenda is flexible and we can change if you want to use other requirements, times, etc. We encourage eating a good breakfast or a late lunch/early dinner. Cost is only the entrance fee for each Scout and accompanying chaperone.

Page 2

VOLUNTEER COMMITTEE REPORT

We have had a busy three months since the last news-letter. We have welcomed these new volunteers since the last newsletter:

Joe Ballweg

Mark Townsend

Dona Wilkins

David Morningstar

The TWA Museum is extremely grateful for the countless hours that our volunteers give each month. Without these dedicated volunteers we would not be able to keep the doors open at the museum! Thanks to each one of them!

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, send us an email at(TWAMuseum@gmail.com) or call the Museum (816-234-1011) and we will set up an interview and get you started.

We ask that you work 3 hour shifts (Tuesday thru Saturday 10A to 1P or 1P to 4P) and specify your preferred day/days to work.

Ann Noland

Volunteer Coordinator

70 Foot Cement Arrows All over the coun-try, 70-foot con-crete arrows can be found in re-mote locations. Follow them, and they’ll point you out of the desert.

They come courtesy of the US Postal Service’s Air Force and will point you all the way across the continental United States.

They were constructed in 1924 to guide postal planes in the right direction as

they carried mail from coast to coast.

These old planes couldn’t rely on radio as much at the time, so they used these arrows, along with beacon towers, to navi-gate. The arrows and beacons bisect the United States from San Francisco to New York City.

The towers were 50 feet tall and fixed with gas lights that could be seen from 10 miles away, in order to help lost pilots find their way. Right is a model of the arrows and towers in their heyday!

World War II brought new advances in radio technology that effectively made the towers and arrows system obsolete. The towers were mostly dismantled.

There has been an effort to restore and preserve some of them, however like this one (left) in New Mexico com-plete with its generator shack.

This is a pretty cool piece of history, even if it was short lived. To think of those early postal pilots navi-gating like this from coast to coast is mind blowing.

My flight on the TWA Constellation to Italy! Submitted by Gary Caraway

My name is Gary Caraway. I live in Geneva, Florida halfway be-tween Orlando and Daytona Beach. In 1949 or maybe 1950, my moth-er, sister and I flew to Italy on Howard Hughes TWA Lockheed Constellation. I was only 10 years old. I still have my passport with my picture on it when I was 10. That was 67 years ago. I doubt there are many people left who can say that they did that in 1949. I still remember some things about the flight. My sister fell asleep when it was still daylight. She woke up when it

was dark and looked out the window and saw the exhaust flames and started yelling “The plane’s on fire!!” That caused some tense moments until they told her what it was.

About 5 or 6 years ago they had a Connie at the Sanford, Florida airport that’s about 15 miles from me. I went to see it. It’s still cool looking with that sloped nose! I really don’t know why I’m writing this letter. I guess I feel like a part of TWA history and I bet you could count the people who flew over the Atlantic in 1949 on TWA on your fingers and toes (I’m talking about people still with us of course.) When we arrived in Italy we lived in a town named Pia-cenza which just happens to be Sergio Armani’s home town. Who knows? Maybe I knew him! The people in town told us we were the first American children they had ever seen!

One of your first overseas customers, Gary Caraway

Page 3

Just a day in the life of a TWA Museum Volunteer!

-Nancy Sitzmann When I came in this particular morning opening the muse-um and turning on lights, I noticed that in our toy display case the two hostess/host dolls had fallen over. We can’t have that!

I realized right away that I was not going to be able to move the case away from the wall because it was so heavy. Shortly after, one of my “problem solver” volun-teers, Charlie Sheldon arrived and he went to work finding a pry bar

and furniture slides and between the two of us we were able to move the case away from the wall. Now the big issue was trying to figure out how to get the two dolls to stand on their own and not fall over when we moved the case back. We tried tape and museum putty but to no avail! I was describing my Barbie Doll stands to Charlie and off he went in search of some hangers with which he could engineer a home-made stand and after a cou-ple of tries he was success-ful and the dolls were placed back in the display case! Charlie worked for TWA from 1957 to 1997 as a Pro-pulsion Engineer and retired from TWA as Director of Pro-pulsion & Ground Support Engineering. Thank you Charlie!!!!

TWA Museum Board Visits the Archive & Library

On July 18th the Archive Team invited the TWA Museum Board of Direc-tors to tour the storage and library where they do their extraordinary work for the Muse-um! The tour was in-formative and the lunch-eon delightful and en-joyed by all!

(Above left: Carol Emert & Martha Katz prepare the luncheon)

(Left: Chris Nold with Mary Ellen Miller and Mark Murtha in the back-ground)

(Left: the Archive/Library Team. Back Row: Dick Rees, Mark Murtha, Zana Allen, and John Mays. Front Row: Martha Katz and Carol Emert. Not pic-tured: Joe Ballweg)

Page 4

Welcome New Friends of the TWA

Museum!!!

From August

to October Ray and Laura Charles-Kansas City, MO

Phillip Gaskin-Los Angeles ,CA.

Scott Jones-Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

Daniel Myers-Columbia ,MO.

Anita Hudson-Independence ,MO.

Terrence and Bertha McKinney

James Grube-Leawood, KS.

From those of us who

volunteer at the

TWA Museum. . .

We wish you a warm and wonderful

Holiday Season!

The Museum will be closed the following days:

November 24

December 24-December 26

December 31-January 2

The Museum will be closed for renovation and display updates the following days:

January 27-January 31

February 1-February 13

Save the Date! TWA Museum 1940’s USO Style

Hangar Dance

Saturday April 29, 2017 Watch for more information to come!

Holiday Shopping! Need ideas for your holiday shopping? Don’t forget about the TWA Museum gift shop. We have some won-derful numbered prints by Doug Rowe, son of Ray Rowe, one of the TWA Museum volunteers! Check out our website: twamuseumat10richardsroad.org

Anita’s Memories. . . . Submitted by Anita Smith

In 1944, I was a “Government Girl” in Washington, D.C. I was just 17 and the U.S. was at war. D.C. was such an exciting place to be. I stayed there one year and came back to Kansas City in December 1944. Mother was raising my brother and sister on a very limited paycheck as a widow. I needed to go to work quickly. On January 8, 1945 I be-gan my 40 year love affair with TWA! I was blessed! It was “Transcontinental and Wester Air then with a history of TAT, Western and others. What a wonderful place to work. . . To see aviation move into our lives!

In 1945, TWA was an exciting place to work with new employees and returning military people who had worked for TWA before WWII. TWA had offices all over downtown

Kansas City. We were a “family”. Frequent parties and get togethers on Saturdays, a club room to meet other TWA peo-ple, picnics in Loose Park, and the Continental Hotel let TWA use the swimming pool, exercise room, etc. The top floor set up cafeteria lines for us and was used for dances of TWA people on several occasions. Kansas City loved TWA! I remember two big stage shows created and put on by TWA in downtown Kansas City with returning military people as well as present TWA employees! Fun! I remember V-J Day on Kansas City’s Baltimore Avenue between 11th and 12 Streets. The street and sidewalks were full of celebrating people!

My first boss was George Levering. I worked for George for 7 1/2 years. We were housed in various offices: Board of Trade, Fairfax, and at last transferred to the Airport at 10 Richards Road. I was very troubled about crossing the Missouri River daily on the Hannibal Bridge and even gave a few thoughts to not going but by that time I was already in love with this airline so from 1947 until 1960 when I moved back to downtown Kansas City, I “braved” that bridge!

George and I were in the next to last car to get across that bridge during one flood just before a barge which had broken loose, hit the bridge and stopped any more crossings. We took my typewriter and supplies to my home where we worked for two days until the bridge opened. Ten Richards Road was closed several times due to floods but was never reached by the river.

The move to the airport was interesting to me in many ways. For a short time the facilities were still in the WWII mode. I had to enter at the side entrance, show identification and have a security clearance. George and I were housed briefly on the second floor. No air conditioning in those days and we had fans blowing papers around. It was HOT! John Collings office was just down the hall so we often saw “movers and shakers” of our early aviation days.

Soon we moved to 127 just past the front lobby. For years, Ruby McCully greeted our visitors. Our office was great fun because we often were able to see “visitors of interest” as they arrived. I remember hearing the sound of open flying boots flopping down our hall and here came Howard Hughes and Tyrone Power, who had just brought us one of our new “Connies”. Howard delivered several of our Connies but sometimes took them elsewhere first! I remember coming to work one morning and learning that Howard had needed a flight engineer on a Connie and had picked up one of ours, FE Instructor, Bill Bushey, to join him. They flew to Bermuda and Howard even flew Bushey’s wife out to stay with them. We did get Bushey back eventually.

When my first husband returned from Korea I took a 3 month leave of absence to travel. After about two months, Elnora Johnson in Employment called and said she thought she had an opening that I’d like. I came back to work for TWA Flight Crew Ground Training where I stayed until I retired almost 30 years later. Those years were full of exciting challenges, marvelous co-workers, the thrill of being in an early time in an ever-changing industry. I was blessed!

My first trip across the North Atlantic took 16 hours from New York with stops in Gander, Ireland and at last Paris. My last trip across the Atlantic took 3 hours and 20 minutes in a Concorde!

Anita Smith was married to her second husband for 57 years until he passed away in 2013. She spent 40 years with TWA and now resides in Bella Vista, Arkansas. Thank you Anita for sharing your memories with the TWA Museum!

Page 5

TWA Museum would like to THANK. . .

Curt Walters for 3 years of service for creating and updating the website for the TWA Museum.

The MKC Ambassadors Club By John Mays, Museum Librarian

Exciting news! The TWA Board of Directors has approved the construc-tion of a 50 x 20 room at the museum that will offer a library reading room and an Ambassadors Club. Yes, an Ambassadors Club! The club will be 30 x 20 in size, and will be located directly behind the “Scout Room” in the current warehouse area. Our goal is to try and replicate the Club experience, and it will feature items that the museum currently owns related to the Ambassadors Club. While most of our museum exhibits are related to the company and its employees, the Club will be established to honor our most valuable asset – our customers!

The new Club will be decorated in Ambassadors Club décor, but we need your help. If you have any rescued Club furniture, lamps, carpet, etc. that you would like to donate to the endeavor, please e-mail John Mays at twa-johnmays@gmail.com

The museum will also need some assistance in constructing the Club. The muse-um will purchase the materials, and volunteers will construct the walls, doorways

(we will be using original TWA doors!) and ceiling grid. If you are interested in volun-teering, please e-mail John Mays at the address listed above.

Also, if anyone was employed at any of our Ambassadors Clubs, please contact us. We would like your input regard-ing the décor and furnishings. Let us know! Thanks to every-one for their consideration.

Page 6

Did you know the TWA Museum has a

Blog????

TWA Museum volunteer, Wayne Hammer has created TWA Museum Guides Blog! Access for the blog is through the museum's website home page http://www.twamuseumat10richardsroad.org/, where there is a panel with a link to the blog's home page. The Blog recently sur-passed 3,000 views! Our very first article (the SST) went out there on July 21. Of that 3,000 total, 700 have occurred since the Stratoliner article was published on Sept. 21. Helping Wayne with the Blog are: John Mays, Art Lujin, Larry Dingman, Carol Emert, and Pam Tucker! Be sure to check it out. There’s a lot of good facts and history! Thank you Wayne! We have the best volunteers!

The Hometown Airline That Cares for it’s Employees!!!

Submitted by Donna Gentry

In the year 1964, my husband K.W. (Bill) Gentry (Inspector Engine Overhaul-TWA years 1951-1983) parents were in a car accident while on vacation in California. His Mom was killed instantly and his Dad was paralyzed from the neck down. Bill and I flew to Cali-fornia on passes TWA furnished. While there with the great help of Los Angeles TWA personnel, we were able to fly his Mom’s body home to Kansas City. At that period of time TWA Personnel were able to get a pass for their parents for $3.00 one way. That

was all it cost us to fly his Mom home. TWA personnel were notified in Kansas City and ar-rangements were made for us to meet with a local funeral home to set up the funeral plans. How easy could that be?

Two months later his Dad was released from the hospital in California. He was released to come home to Kansas City although still paralyzed from the neck down. TWA personnel in both Los Angeles and Kansas City made arrangements for his Dad to fly to Kansas City. He required 4 First Class seats so he could be horizontal and a doctor had to accompany him. TWA flew him home for $3.00 on his parent pass. Bill’s Dad lived for 7 months in a Kansas City hospital before he died.

Nobody can say TWA didn’t take care of their employees and employee families as well as being Kansas City’s hometown airline!

(Donna was employed by TWA from 1952-1954 as a stenographer Engineer Overhaul and is currently a volunteer at the TWA Museum!)

Women in Aviation Air race enthusiast Betty Browning won the 1936 Amelia Earhart Trophy Race at the Na-tional Air Races in Los Angeles.

Flying a Cessna C-34, Browning led a group of

eight women in the twenty-five mile race at an average speed of 156.4 miles per hour. She came in second in the same race in 1937.

Browning found pylon racing to be of great sport, but she did not depend on aviation as a source of income. Instead she worked as a secretary at the Sheffield Steel Corporation in Kansas City, and flew on a Trans-World Airline flight to Los Angeles to participate in the fifty-minute race. She also participated in the Miami Air Ma-neuvers flying from Miami to Havana.

She was skeptical about women's commercial flying op-portunities beyond the few superstars at the top. Adopting a philosophical attitude, Browning hoped to make enough money by racing just to break even on her flying expenses.

(Betty being congratulated aby Amelia Earhart in 1936)

(Bob Foos from Webb City, Missouri visited the TWA Mu-seum on June 17th and felt a native Webb City girl, Betty Browning, should be recognized as a Pioneer in Aviation! Thanks Bob! Great idea!)

Page 7

From the Archive Partners in Preservation

By John Mays, Museum Librarian

On October 11, 2016, our museum reached an historic mo-ment in time. Partnering with American Airlines’ C.R. Smith Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, we received, on loan, the photo collection of the famed Ed Betts Collection. TWA Captain Ed Betts (1920 – 2001; TWA 1945 – 1980) became involved with early TWA history and published many books and articles as an authority on the subject. Ed also served as the historian of TARPA (now the TWA Retired Pilots Association). When Mr. Betts passed away, his TWA memorabilia and papers were donated to the C.R. Smith Museum. This donation was well-established as the “Capt. Ed Betts Collection.”

Back in 2015, I traveled to the C.R. Smith Museum in order to find out more about the collection. I was impressed with the museum’s facilities and collection, and even more impressed by their staff. We pledged to work together and share infor-mation that could further our missions as preservationists, bonded by a passion of commercial aviation history. For over a year, the C.R. Smith Museum’s staff and volunteers painstak-ingly inventoried the Betts collection of photos, an assemblage of almost 1,500 images that will be scanned by our museum archives volunteers and digitally preserved by both organiza-tions. Once scanned, the photos will be available, in low reso-lution format, on our archives website. It is our hope that someday we will also be able to digitally convert the docu-ments in the Betts Collection to share with the world.

We are truly thankful for the efforts of the volunteers and staff of the C.R. Smith Museum for their time and commit-ment to this loan. Special thanks also to the TWA Museum Board of Directors, who fully supported this partnership and funded the travel and insurance required for the transfer and protection of the collection while it is in our possession. Now it’s time to get to work! We hope to complete the digital con-version process by April of 2017.

Note: While we recognize that everyone is excited about the Betts Collection, please do not contact the Museum in order to search and view the collection while it is in our possession. Our volunteers will need to focus on the conversion process and our attention will be placed on completing that work within the time frame allowed (6 months). The photos will be available on our ar-chives website when time allows.

(Pictured right: John Mays, TWA Museum Librarian with Tim McElroy, Head of Inter-pretation and Education/Curator, C.R. Smith Museum)

Page 8

TWA Museum, Inc.

10 NW Richards Road

Kansas City, MO 64116-4253

If you have a TWA story you’d like to share, please email your story with a picture or two to nlsitz-mann7@gmail.com or mail to the Museum email twamuseum@gmail.com or mail to TWA Museum, 10 Richards Road, Kansas City, MO 64116

Planning on visiting the TWA Museum????

Hours are Tuesday - Saturday 10AM - 4PM

Adults $7.00

Children(6-12) $5.00

Seniors $5.00

Active Military Personal are FREE /with ID

Call the TWA Museum at 816-234-1011 for group rates.