Stewardess recalls early years of air travel

Jerry Seigler, left, hands a horned toad to an American Air Lines stewardess as part of a publicity stunt in 1952 when she was a stewardess for Trans Texas Air Lines. Later, she worried that she might be fired for not wearing her hat. less Jerry Seigler, left, hands a horned toad to an American Air Lines stewardess as part of a publicity stunt in 1952 when she was a stewardess for Trans Texas Air Lines. Later, she worried that she might be fired ... more Photo: Courtesy Photo Photo: Courtesy Photo Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Stewardess recalls early years of air travel 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

“My mother thought I was nuts,” Jerry Seigler said.

Seigler’s mom had been a schoolteacher and wanted her daughter to go to college. But influenced by Daphne Davenport Hollingsforth, a Braniff stewardess who spoke at a Plainview High School career day, Seigler had flying on her mind.

She tried the conventional route for awhile, but she knew she wasn’t meant to be a teacher and cut more classes at Texas Tech than she, perhaps, should have. Her dad finally told her to go get a job and find out what it was like to earn a paycheck.

It was the chance she’d been waiting for. In spite of the fact that she was not tall enough (just a little under the requisite 5’2) and not old enough (not quite 21, she “fudged” her age), Seigler was, nevertheless, accepted in a training program for Trans Texas Air Lines stewardesses in 1952.

Now 80 years old, Seigler says the job was everything she expected it to be.

“I loved to fly, enjoyed the people - loved everything about it,” she said.

Trans Texas was a “feeder” airline, flying DC-3s, which Seigler describes as the “workhorses” of World War II, from smaller towns into the Houston airport. They collected passengers, mostly businessmen, from Galveston, San Antonio, Victoria, Harlingen, McAllen and Brownsville.

Flights were very short, so most of the time the pilot flew under 10,000 feet.

“We didn’t gain a lot of altitude,” Seigler said. “During the hot months, it was rough a lot of the time. There were people that got airsick.”

One particular flight, she remembers, was populated by young soldiers traveling home on leave from boot camp in San Antonio.

“There were 21 boys on that flight,” she said, “and every one of those ol’ boys got sick.”

In those days, instead of air sickness bags, the plane carried ice cream cartons under the seats. Seigler was the only stewardess, and she did her job, collecting the buckets and stacking them near the door, which worked on a hydraulic lift.

When a ground crew member opened the door and saw all those ice cream buckets, “He tried to close the door,” Seigler said, laughing heartily at the memory.

When Seigler first started working for Trans Texas, the stewardesses wore a uniform consisting of a bolero jacket, pressed and starched white blouse, skirt, cowboy hat and boots. Though the navy-blue leather boots were “sharp-looking,” they grew uncomfortable during a long day, and the airline soon switched to more comfortable pumps and a traditional stewardess hat.

Seigal, however, hated her hat and ditched it whenever she could.

“I wore more hair poofed,” she explained, “and the hat mashed my hair.”

Once a Massachusetts science teacher wrote to the Harlingen Chamber of Commerce and requested a horned toad for a unit on reptiles. The airline saw a publicity opportunity, and the horned toad rode in cargo, unknown to Seigler, who was asked to hand it off to an American Air Line stewardess. The picture of slender, blonde Seigler handing a horned toad to a somewhat repulsed American stewardess was a good one and went front page in a San Antonio newspaper.

But it caused Seigler a lot of worry.

“I was out of uniform,” she explained. “I wasn’t wearing my hat, and I was scared to death the chief stewardess would see it.”

Larger airlines had advantages over smaller airlines including better pay, more comfortable flights above 10,000 feet and more opportunity to travel. But Seigler enjoyed the smaller airline.

“We were like family, more close-knit,” she said. The crew members consisting of the pilot and co-pilot, were polite, and the passengers, mostly businessmen, were seldom any trouble. Coffee and lemonade were the only drinks served, and there were no meals to bother with.

“The pay was very good for what we did,” Seigler said.

Seigler lived in a boardinghouse in Beaumont at first, sharing a bathroom with a truck driver in the room across from hers. Fortunately, she said, he was seldom home during the day. She had no car, so the crew members picked her up on her way to work.

Later she was transferred to Houston, where she shared an apartment with three other stewardesses. One of them had a car and was generous in letting her roommates use it, even leaving the keys in it for their convenience.

Seigler made good friends during her two years as a stewardess. One passenger, a buyer from San Angelo, would go to market and pick out clothes specifically for Seigler, in the days when petite sizes were just coming into being. Before that, Seigler said, her clothes had to be handmade.

Another friend was Gay Vollmert of Colorado, Seigler’s training stewardess. When Seigler got sick during some turbulence on her first training flight, she feared she wouldn’t be able to realize her dream of being a stewardess. Vollmert advised her not to sit still, that it was better to stand and get her “sea legs,” and that she would be all right after she rode out that first flight.

“She was so sweet to me,” Seigler recalls. “I had no trouble after that.”

The two women kept up with each other through the years, sending Christmas cards and visiting each other in their homes.

In those days, stewardesses were not allowed to marry, which was one of the biggest factors in stewardess turnover. Following the pattern, Seigler married a career military man after two years as a stewardess. Because of his job, she lived “all over the United States.”

After the couple divorced, Seigler married Dr. Gale Seigler, a family physician in Plainview. They were married 38 years, until his death four years ago this month.

Seigler believes that some of the glamour has gone out of being a stewardess, or “flight attendant” as they are called now.

“Nowadays, everybody has flown,” she said. “Some of the romance and comfort is gone,”

On a trip to Europe, Seigler said, she felt as though they were “packed in there like sardines.”

However, she adds, “They got us there and back safe.”

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