Walking on Air (26 page)

Ratcliffe was initially unwilling to commit to producing Phoebe's story in its current state. She made it clear that she “did not work with the subject I am writing about except to hone up the story and draw out the stronger
points.” She suggested Phoebe and Della May draw up an agreement to work together to get her memoirs in that condition before she would take it on.
⁷⁰
While the discussion continued, Phoebe issued a power of attorney putting Della May in charge of her personal and financial affairs and signed a new will leaving all of her estate to Della May Frazier. Article II reflected her intentional distance from her family (an estrangement that had apparently begun when she split with her brother Paul in the 1920s and maintained over the many years since their parents' death): “I am aware that I have blood relatives and it is my demand and my firm will that no blood relative nor any of their heirs receive or any way participate or enjoy benefits or inheritance from my estate, be it personal or real, tangible or intangible.”
⁷¹
The three women eventually signed a collaborative proposal Phoebe drew up at the end of the month, in which Della May promised that she would “in all ways act as I [Phoebe] would act in regard to the preparation and eventual sale of the manuscript.” They all recognized that the clock was running out for Phoebe.
⁷²

The course of her cancer had been swift, but her doctor remained optimistic. The previous month, Dr. Woerner indicated that following Phoebe's first course of “irradiation” for lung cancer in 1974, a new nodule in the left lung was found in February 1975, and she was again “treated with irradiation.” Both times she responded well. “The stress on her heart has increased … [but] Her appetite has improved, and she has started to gain a little weight. It is impossible to say at this time how long we will be able to control her problem.”
⁷³

After visiting the York Hotel, Della May tried to get Phoebe into a better living environment; she offered to help her apply for assistance to live in a low-income apartment complex. Given Phoebe's storied distrust of others and her proud rejection of any kind of assistance from friends, much less from the government, her transformation here is remarkable. For reasons we'll never know she responded positively to Della May's compassion. Phoebe had so little income (just over $2,000 a year) that her application was easily approved. Her rent in her new place in Pine Needle Court was $134.50 ($50 less than at the York) of which $99 would be covered by the Federal Housing Authority. With so few belongings, Phoebe was easily and quickly moved. Jean and Della May furnished her apartment and got her a telephone (the one in the York was in the lobby). Phoebe took possession of her new apartment on 7 June. Less than three weeks later, Phoebe called Della May to tell her that she had lung cancer and that she was going to the hospital.
⁷⁴

Jean called Louise, then Louise wrote Glenn describing Phoebe's desperate circumstances: “Phoebe Omlie is in an Indianapolis hospital, dying …. Phoebe is destitute; the hotel where she lived was on Skid Row and in a very small room at that; malnutrition; deaf; no possessions. Of course, no family. Phoebe has been as controversial as she is proud—and this period of last years' finish of her life is heart-breaking.”
⁷⁵

Phoebe checked into St. Vincent's Hospital for the last time on 27 June. She died there three weeks later, at 2
AM
on 17 July, of “lung cancer with metastasis.”
⁷⁶
Della May had visited her the day before, but regretted that Phoebe died alone. She took her favorite red nail polish to the funeral home. Phoebe had $837 in her bank account when she died. Della May made up the difference in paying for the doctor, hospital, the local undertaker to prepare the body, the airfare, and the bill for her funeral in Memphis.
⁷⁷
Phoebe had told Della May that she wished to be buried next to her husband in Memphis. Since Della May did not know any of Phoebe's friends in Memphis, she contacted the Ninety-Nines in Oklahoma City, who referred her to the Ninety-Nines chapter in Memphis to meet the body and make arrangements there. She sent along a floral arrangement in the shape of a propeller.
⁷⁸
A brief graveside service put Phoebe to rest beside her husband in Forest Hills Cemetery.

Obituaries that followed celebrated her amazing career while only mentioning, if at all, the circumstances of her final years. One exception was published in the local paper by a writer who apparently had intimate knowledge of Phoebe's life in Indianapolis. Phoebe, she wrote,

walked briskly … her head held high with an air of dignity … she wore silver wings on her lapel. She met acquaintances for good conversation at the YWCA or in a busy hotel lobby. Seldom did she invite guests to her $21 a week shabby room. She ate one full meal a day, and kept eggs, butter and milk in her window. Her small Social Security check and much smaller amount from her husband's pension sustained her. She would have no part of welfare or food stamps …. She treasured scrapbooks and pictures of the golden days of her life in space, and carried them with her in a courier case. Without a plane, she was like a bird with a broken wing.
⁷⁹

Soon after Phoebe returned to Memphis for the last time, local columnist Eldon Roark suggested naming the Memphis International Airport for the Omlies
. The Memphis chapter of the Ninety-Nines enthusiastically endorsed the idea, saying that Memphis-Omlie International “has a nice ring, don't you think?”
¹

Aviation enthusiast James T. Kacarides, editor of the
Memphis Flyer
, the publication of the Memphis Experimental Aircraft Association, had already been working for several years on a fitting memorial for Memphis' most famous woman aviator.
²
Kacarides had widespread support from the aviation community. Groups like the Experimental Aircraft Association, the Civil Air Patrol, the Ninety-Nines, the Antique Airplanes Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, and the Confederate Air Force responded enthusiastically to these efforts. First, they attempted to get the Shelby County Airport named for her in 1970, but the County Quarterly Court named it for their chairman, Charles W. Baker.
³
Next, when the Mud Island Downtown Airport was relocated and hence would be renamed in 1971, Kacarides submitted a long brief outlining her career to justify the name change. It was because of the Omlies' “unbounded energies and hard
work [that] aviation was rooted to Memphis,” he wrote. Instead, the downtown airport was named to honor local war hero Brigadier General DeWitt Spain, who died in 1969.
⁴
This most recent call, in 1975, to include Phoebe Omlie in the title of the Memphis International Airport was rejected by the Airport Authority. Instead, they created an Aviation Historical Room in the Terminal Building “to perpetuate the memory of the Omlies.”
⁵

The issue was raised again in the centennial edition of the
Memphis Press-Scimitar
in 1980 that featured a detailed article about Phoebe Omlie's career from her high school graduation until her husband died in 1936, closing briefly with her sad end and her “battle with the bottle.”
⁶
Kacarides responded to the
Press-Scimitar
with a letter to the editor that extended the highlights of her career post-1936 and suggested that the time was right to establish a lasting memorial to Phoebe Omlie.
⁷
He proposed “the new air traffic control tower at Memphis International Airport be named in memory of Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie in recognition of her outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the field of American aviation. Towering into the sky she loved so dearly, it would be a magnificent tribute to a magnificent woman.”
⁸
Carolyn Sullivan, representing the Memphis chapter of the Ninety-Nines, enthusiastically endorsed the idea, adding, “I can see a beautiful bronze likeness of her, gazing skyward, on an appropriate natural stone or granite base. This object would be facing, and near, the road which passes the tower, where thousands and thousands of people would see, read, and be inspired by it.”
⁹

While Kacarides campaigned for naming the tower for Phoebe Omlie alone, particularly emphasizing her work in government on behalf of general aviation long after her husband had died, the Airport Authority clearly preferred naming the tower for both the Omlies. In their December meeting, they officially “agreed to name the airport tower after Vernon C. Omlie and his wife, Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie, if the move is approved by Federal Aviation Administration officials.”
¹⁰
In response to their inquiry, the FAA pointed out that “Federal Aviation Administration facilities are not usually named in honor of people, living or dead, in or out of aviation. As a matter of fact, it takes an act by the Congress of the United States to name a government facility after a person.”
¹¹
The Airport Authority promptly informed Kacarides that the FAA had rejected the proposal, but Kacarides saw not rejection but a suggestion that they pursue congressional action.
¹²
He pressed that the issue be included in the next meeting's agenda, and after a favorable vote by the Airport Authority, chairman Ned Cook contacted the members
of Tennessee's congressional delegation to request that they initiate a bill to name the new FAA control tower “Omlie Tower.”
¹³

Senators Howard Baker and Jim Sasser filed the bill S.896 in the Senate. Representatives Harold Ford, Robin Beard, and Ed Jones sponsored the matching bill, H.R. 3072, in the House. “A bill to designate the control tower at Memphis International Airport the Omlie Tower” easily passed the Senate in May 1981. It was held up in the House over Department of Transportation concerns that “Confusion could arise because the airport approach control, VOR, air route traffic control center, and flight service station at that location are all identified as ‘Memphis.' Additionally, considerable cost would be involved in reprinting documents such as approach plates, enroute and sectional charts, the Airman's Information Manual, and the airport facility directory.” In order to minimize this confusion the bill contained language that any references to said tower would be “held and considered to refer to ‘Omlie Tower.' Therefore, “Pilots would still ‘call in' to ‘Memphis Tower' and maps would still read ‘Memphis Tower'—but this would be deemed to refer to Omlie Tower. We were further advised that report language to accompany the bill would make clear that no impact on air traffic control operations was intended.”
¹⁴
With these clarifications, the Department of Transportation satisfied their objections and the Committee on Public Works and Transportation moved to take up the bill. “During debate on the bill on the House side, the sponsors agreed that the renaming of the tower would not mean that federal officials would have to reprint any maps or air charts to show the new name of the tower.”
¹⁵
In short, despite the name change, no one would be required to use the designation.

H.R. 3072 passed the House in early June, and President Reagan signed the measure 21 June 1982.
¹⁶
In making the announcement of the president's signing, Senator Howard Baker said,

This legislation recognizes the enormous contribution to our state and region and to the development of commercial aviation across the country by two famous aviation pioneers, Phoebe and Vernon Omlie … We have all marveled at the technological and human magnificence manifested in our space shuttle program. We would do well to remember that such would not be possible were it not for the aviation pioneers of a previous generation, such as Phoebe and Vernon Omlie.
¹⁷

In August, two months after the president signed the legislation, Kacarides, who had been appointed by the Airport Authority to be chairman of the
dedication ceremony, began writing letters trying to find out what the FAA Regional Office planned for the ceremony.
¹⁸
The Regional Office, he was told, “were non-committal on any plans for a dedication ceremony.”
¹⁹
At the end of August, the
Press-Scimitar
reported that the lack of a plaque was holding up a planned dedication ceremony for the newly named Omlie Tower. Until it arrived, no dedication ceremony would be scheduled.
²⁰
Continued letters from Kacarides throughout the fall yielded a notice that the FAA estimated the dedication would be set up within two to three months.
²¹
Still, the plaque never arrived, and the ceremony was never held.

When I approached the Memphis–Shelby County Airport Authority about the issue, they averred that the control tower was indeed officially named the Omlie Tower. Still, if there was no plaque, no dedication, and the airport did not use that designation, what did that mean? What it meant was that they considered the matter closed.

Further investigation revealed the general consensus among representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration that the name change had been pushed aside in the turmoil surrounding the PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) strike in 1981. PATCO went on strike on 3 August 1981, in violation of a law that banned strikes by government unions. Although other government unions had declared strikes without penalty, this time President Reagan declared the strike a “peril to national safety” and ordered the air traffic controllers back to work within forty-eight hours. When they failed to comply, the president fired over 11,300 striking controllers and banned them from federal service for life. The FAA was then faced with the massive task of replacing all these controllers in order to keep the nation's commercial aviation system moving and safe. In short, the FAA was distracted by significant other priorities in 1982.