PHOEBE FAIRGRAVE OMLIE
Walsh Heritage, ND USA 1881-1981 Vol 1 p.200

Vernon Omlie was survived by his mother, his sister: Lillian Tverberg, his brother Melvin and his wife: Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie. Phoebe was never a North Dakotan, but her life, so closely bound to Vernon's, her accomplishments and her appointments, helped by his teaching, are really a tribute to him.

She won every air race she ever entered. On winning the Los Angeles to Chicago cross-country, against both men and women in 1930, she was asked to speak over the airport radio to a national hook-up; always brief, she spoke only about three sentences, the last of which wa "I didn't win this race. Wernon Omlie did, he taught me all I know about flying."

In 1936, she was appointed by President Roosevelt as head of the Federal Air-Marking program; in 1937 she was chosen by the National President of the American Legion Auxiliary at their National Convention to be the main speaker, which is always boradcast over the national hook-ups. She has filled many similar requests from other national meetings. She was the only woman flyer on the Ford Reliability Tour in 1929. during Word War II, she was the liason between the Federal Departments of the Navy and Commerce, with number two priority flying for women in the U.S. During that same war period, she headed a school for women flyers to become "ferry" pilots. At the close of the war, the federal government set up a program of evaluating the efficiency of airports, etc, who wished to be accredited as suitable and competent schools for this work. Phoebe headed this program. She was a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board for a number of years. She invented an air response gadget for the instrument panel of a plane, by which the gadget made an instantaneous record of how long it took a flyer to respond to a command from the ground, and to put the command into action. This invention, along with numerous others by Phoebe and Vernon, together or individually, are in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

The August, 1929, issue of the American Monthly Magazine carried a very special feature, several pages long, occasioned by recent feats of Phoebe. The cover of the magazine was a picture of the kind of plane she flew, a Monocoupe. the first page of the article had a similar plane picture, with pictures of Vernon and Phoebe, with the feature by-line: "There's no stopping a woman with courage like this."

In 1923 or 1924, the newsreels carried a picture of Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, handing to Phoebe Omlie, the first transport pilot's license ever issued to any woman in the United States and added to it the first world's transport pilot's license for a woman flyer.

It is no wonder the order of the "Quiet Birdmen" selected Phoebe to be one of their "Queen Bees", and equally exclusive group of the best, (only about ten) women flyers of the world.

Vernon taught Phoebe not only to fly a plane, but to assemble one, to take it apart, to be her own mechanic, even to make her own plane, her famous little "puddle jumper", its replica being in the Smithsonian Institute.

This artile about Mrs vernon Omlie (Phoebe) is added to the OMLIE history, not to redound to her fame, but as a tribute to Vernon who was both her teacher and her husband.

--page 200, Vol 1, Walsh Heritage, ND 1881-1981