Biographical Sketches

KATHERINE STINSON

Born: February 14, 1891    In: Fort Payne, AL
Died: July 8, 1977    

In the notable feminine side of the Stinson family, Katherine was first to take up flying. Flying lessons cost her $500, and the family piano was sold to help pay for them, but she never needed the piano again. She was the fourth woman in the U S to earn a pilot’s license, which she did on July 24, 1912 in a Wright B. Only 21 at the time, and tipping the scales 101 pounds, she became known as the "Flying Schoolgirl," flying exhibitions all over the country, even adding lights and doing loops at night. She set many records, performed in Japan and China, and was the first woman sworn in by the Post Office as an air mail carrier.

In 1915 Katherine and Marjorie instructed in their own Aviation School in San Antonio with their brothers, Eddie and Jack, as mechanics. There they trained Canadian cadets for the war, who became known as the "Texas Escadrille," and Marjorie was called the "flying schoolmarm." The girls also flew many exhibitions for the Liberty Loan Drive.

The Stinson School closed in 1917. Katherine became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Europe, where she contracted influenza, which eventually turned into tuberculosis in 1920, causing her retirement from aviation. She married in 1928 and moved to Santa Fe NM, where she designed houses. She was 86 when she died in 1977. (K O Eckland)

REFERENCES:
Morehouse Early Pioneers

EDWARD "EDDIE" A. STINSON

Born: July 11, 1894    In: Fort Payne, AL
Died: January 26, 1932    In: Santa Fe, NM

Eddie Stinson left school in 1910, at age 16, and set out on his own heading for St Louis, where he heard of two men building an airplane -- quite an novelty in those days. There, with youthful exuberance, he conviced the men that he should be their pilot since neither of them had any flying experience. He did, however, neglect to mention that he, as well, had never even seen an airplane before, let alone fly one.

Once the kitelike contraption was finished, it was towed into a farmer’s pasture where the boy took the controls and started off on his solo flight. In a cloud of blue smoke, the plane lurched forward, and either with a timely gust of wind or a bump in the ground, it sprang into the air, soared momentarily, then sank back to earth with a crunch that collapsed one of its wings. While its distance was measured in feet, and its altitude not much above the tall grass, the flight was declared a success.

As payment, the builders gave Stinson the aircraft and went on to other ventures, and the boy was allowed to keep his plane in the pasture, plus room and board, in return for helping the owner with farm chores. In time, the plane was repaired, and a second flight proved conclusively that Stinson was no ace pilot when it was reduced to kindling on its second "landing."

Working locally, he managed to save up $500, enough for flight instruction at the Wright’s school in Dayton. After graduation, he began the life of a barnstormer, finally ending up in San Antonio, where he established a base of operations with sister Marjorie, the Stinson School for Aviation. In 1917 and 1918 they trained Army pilots at nearby Kelly Field, for which Eddie received a lieutenant’s commission.

Quick to seize an opportunity, at war’s end he and a friend flew two surplus Army planes to Newport News, where they offered rides to disembarking soldiers -- they had seen airplanes overhead in France, but not close up -- at $10, and in a few weeks earned a small fortune. After that episode, he worked in the East as test pilot and mechanic, and in 1920 bought the Dixie Flying Field in Birmingham to start another flight school. After a marriage and numerous meandering careers, he finally chose Detroit as his new home, and concentrated his flying activities there.

He convinced a group of Detroit businessmen to invest in his idea of an aircraft company, and thus was the Stinson Airplane Syndicate formed in 1925. There he designed and buit the first cabin plane with an electric starter, a heater, wheel brakes and -- best of all -- flight stability, the hallmark of Stinsons to come.

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REFERENCES:
Morehouse Early Pioneers

MARJORIE STINSON

Born: July 5, 1895    In: Fort Payne, AL
Died: April 15, 1975    In: Washington, D.C.

In the notable feminine side of the Stinson family, younger sister, Marjorie, learned to fly and attended the Wright School of Aviation in Dayton, earning her license on August 12, 1914, the ninth U.S. woman to do so and the youngest at age 18. Like her sister, she became an air mail carrier.

In 1915 Katherine and Marjorie instructed in their own Aviation School in San Antonio with their brothers, Eddie and Jack, as mechanics. There they trained Canadian cadets for the war, who became known as the "Texas Escadrille," and Marjorie was called the "flying schoolmarm." The girls also flew many exhibitions for the Liberty Loan Drive.

The Stinson School closed in 1917. Marjorie, after their school closed, barnstormed fairs and air meets until 1928, giving up flying in 1930 to work as a draftsman for the War Department. When she died in 1975 at age 79, her ashes were symbolically scattered over Stinson Field in Texas from a 1931 Curtiss Pusher. (K O Eckland)

REFERENCES:
Morehouse Early Pioneers

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.