'Imagine losing your job because you got married' – 93-year-old Ethel Pattison recalls a lifetime in air travel

If you have the strength to have made it to 93 years old, you are likely to have seen a lot in your lifetime – the waxing and waning of eras, fresh tastes in music and fashion, the rise of new technologies to replace devices that were once themselves clever innovations.

This is certainly the case with Ethel Pattison, a Los Angeleno who has spent her entire career in the air industry – working on flights as a stewardess in the Fifties, and meeting film stars and celebrities as part of the administration team at Los Angeles International Airport.

Even as LAX enters its own tenth decade (it has just celebrated its 90th birthday), Ethel is still there, as the historian at its Flight Path Museum - with plenty of tales to tell...

Can you recall the first time you saw a plane in the sky?

I would have been a little girl. I was raised in Los Angeles, near Griffith Park. The little planes would fly over. And I saw airliners at Burbank Airport in the Thirties. I used to watch the trains on Sundays, with my father. We would go to Glendale station. Then we would go to Glendale Airport, then to Burbank. Then the war came, and that all changed.

When did you decide you wanted to work in air travel?

I graduated from USC [the University of Southern California], and went to work for [the airline] United in 1951. I was active in my university sorority. One of my sorority sisters became a stewardess for United. She flew charters for the USC [American] football team. I got interested, and was accepted in 1951. So I went to Cheyenne, Wyoming for training.

Was the training difficult?

It was five weeks, and intense. We were on a military base at the airport. But it was fun. I met my husband-to-be there. He was a student in Lincoln, Nebraska, at the dental school – but I met him in church. His father was the minister.

What were the requirements of the job?

You had to be able to talk to people - and they wanted you to look nice, I guess. Anyway, yes. Next question!

You were a pioneer. What did your parents make of you going into the air industry?

I wasn't a real pioneer, no. The first stewardesses flew in the Thirties – women as nurses to help passengers. The planes had propellers, so they flew low. It was rougher, more turbulent. So there was more difficulty keeping the passengers comfortable. I would hand it [pioneer status] to those girls first. I was not a pioneer like those girls, who started in the original days, or all those girls who flew during the war.

What was the most difficult part of the job?

With those propeller planes – when it was turbulent, it could be pretty rough. You had to hang on. People were belted in, but it wasn't as strict as it is now. We had to move up and down the aisle, and individually serve people little trays of coffee and tea. Simple things.

My first flight was with a group of veterans of the Korean War. It was awful. It was from Seattle to Denver, over the Rockies. Everyone got sick. Everyone. Including the sergeant in charge. He was telling everyone to go to the rest room. I was helping as best I could. I thought: "This is everything I trained for, in one flight. And it's my first flight". But I survived, and after that my job was pretty calm – because nothing was like that first day.

Where was the most exotic place you flew to?

I only flew in the US, because we didn't go far in those days. You could fly five hours or so. Probably over the Rockies, out of LA or Denver, back to Seattle, where I was based. That was always spectacular. I didn't go to Hawaii. You had to be very senior, or a nurse.

Why did you stop flying?

Well, I flew for a year, and saw my husband-to-be here and there. Then we got married. And that was that. It was fun. It was a great job – but you weren't allowed to be a stewardess if you were married. I went on to be the national president of the Clipped Wings – a society for women who have retired as stewardesses. I was very active in that.

Was it frustrating to give up your job for that reason?

We all knew it was part of the requirements. I didn't expect to [have to resign so quickly]. It just happened. We got married and went to Nebraska so he could finish dental school. And that was a real experience. It made me appreciate the weather here [in Los Angeles].

Do you think flying is as glamorous as it used to be, or has it lost a little romance?

I suppose it isn't. But the flight attendants these days are very good at what they do. And they stay a long time – because they can, and they aren't discriminated against, as I was. If you're young nowadays, you can't imagine someone telling you to stop doing your job because you're getting married. Everybody knew that's how it was in my day – but, well...

Cabin crew fly for 30 or 40 years now. And it's a big crowd on a plane now, generally speaking, so that's a different thing. I flew DC-3s with 21 passengers and DC-4s with 44, or something like that. And no pressurisation, of course. It was different – but it was fun!

What happened once you left the airline?

I got a job at LAX, in the Public Relations office. I never dreamed I would be here 63 years later. I was hired as part of a group of former stewardesses, to give tours of the airport to children, students and adults – to pass a bond issue in 1956. It was a drive to build a new airport, for the jet age. It had been defeated twice before, in 1951 and 1953 – but everyone was coming to Los Angeles, and we still had a dinky two-level terminal. Because there was no steel after the war, so they couldn't build it any bigger. It was very temporary, in a sense. It's all gone now – it has become the cargo area. Our directors told us to go to the grassroots, to get the children to tell their parents how to vote, had us meet everyone we could. So we did, and the measure won. Eight to one. And we did build, and the new airport opened in 1961. It just shows, in any election, you have to get everybody.

You met the Beatles at the height of Beatlemania, in 1964. Was it strange to be in the middle of the storm, or was it just another day at the office?

They had already been to New York, as you may recall. And it had been almost chaotic; there were signs of a riot. So we knew they were coming, and we planned ahead. It was in Terminal 2. They were just coming in for a press conference, then going up to San Francisco. But for some reason, all the teenage girls knew about it and came in. It was full. I remember saying to my director: "Well I hope they don't push all the windows out".

I went to the press conference, because we were involved. And I took a few pictures, which I never dreamed would be important to anybody 50 years later – but there we are...

Did you get to talk to the band?

We chatted informally, yes. I looked at the photos recently. We're with the press, in a little room, and Brian Epstein looking cranky. One of the PR team was our liaison point for them, for where they were staying. Of course, they didn't know where they were staying. They didn't know anything. And they all smoked cigarettes in the press conference. They were laughing because they all smoked so much. And then they came back a couple of weeks later – and they were very sophisticated by then. And everyone had gone crazy for them by then, so it was all different. But we had them when they were a brand new talent.

Which other famous figures did you meet?

I stood by President Eisenhower on the sidelines when Richard Nixon was running for something or other. He was just an ordinary fellow, standing there on the ramp, waiting for Mr Nixon to come down. No fuss. This was after he had been in office, in the early Sixties. I also met Nixon, and I thought he had – I don't know why, because I'm not an eye person – wonderful brown eyes. He got off the plane and was gone straight away, on his campaign. We saw other presidents too. They would land at a remote pad and scurry off by motorcade. We wouldn't necessarily meet them – but we would generally see them.

Did you meet any big Hollywood stars?

I met Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. They were waiting for a departure on a DC-3, so it must have been the early Sixties. She was very, very pretty, naturally beautiful. I met a few stars. Some of them would be nice. But that's all part of PR. You just get on with it.

Are you amazed at how LAX has changed in the time you've been there?

At the time it was being expanded in 1960 and 1961, I took all the employees around to show them what it was going to look like. Our director wanted them to be able to adjust to a new location when it happened. So I watched from the very beginning. It's in the same place now, but just pushed out, and connected, with more gates and second levels and roadways. It's remarkable that they have kept the same footprint and just expanded it out. Now they're adding a mid-field concourse for more gates for international traffic. It's an interesting business. We've done pretty well – we're not actually very big. We're small.

You were instrumental in setting up the airport's Flight Path Museum...

I gathered stuff under my desk and collected other things in boxes. Then the opportunity came, that we could get into this building, which was the West Imperial Terminal – our charter terminal, mostly, on the south side of the airfield. And because I'm older than most, and everybody is so young, I became the museum historian.

Do you have a favourite exhibit?

I like the United exhibit, because it has a picture of me, for some reason. Of when I was flying. But the beauty is that people who like aviation come in and wander around. We have a great view north, towards the runway system. Planes taxi in front of us. It's a nice comfortable place. It makes aviation look easy, but it shows how much there is behind it.

Do you think we'll still be flying in 90 years? Or will there be a new form of transport?

Don't you wonder? Oh, I don't know. Why don't you figure that out? You're younger than me!

Further information

flightpathmuseum.com; flylax.com; discoverlosangeles.com; visitcalifornia.com