Letter writing from the skies

Of Aunts, Airplanes, 9/11 and a Broadway Musical

­Dear Global Jigsaw,

This week’s post is written by a relative, Kartik Pashupati, whose aunt - the sister of his father - was my great aunt, my paternal grandmothers sister.

Hopefully that didn’t do in your head!

I think what’s most remarkable about this piece is how it reminds us about the lost art of letter writing and with it the loss of attention to experience that we are collectively suffering. I have a piece about this here:

Of Aunts, Airplanes, 9/11 and a Broadway Musical

by Kartik Pashupati

By all accounts, my father’s older sister, (Pallavi’s grand aunt) Dr. S. Alankaram, was a woman of remarkable character. Born in the first decade of the 20^th century, she was married off to a much older man when she was a mere child, and widowed when she was a teenager, even before she had ever seen her husband. As noted elsewhere in The Global Jigsaw (https://pallaviaiyar.substack.com/p/orphaned-and-almost-married-at-10), child widows of that era were consigned to a fate worse than death, and expected to spend the rest of their lives wearing white saris, give up material comforts and live an isolated existence. Fortunately, her father was enlightened enough to send Alankaram to Madras (now Chennai), to be cared for by Sister Subbalakshmi, a social reformer who had set up a home there for the education of child widows.

Alankaram was a brilliant student who went on to attend medical school. She obtained her license to practice medicine in the 1930s, and was admitted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS). In 1949, she traveled to the UK, and onward to the United States to attend a series of professional events. A few years ago, I found a few letters written by Alankaram to my parents, in which she described some of her travels. One of these letters, dated 17^th September, 1949, was written onboard an American Airlines flight from London to New York. The letter, written on American Airlines notepaper, starts with a vivid description of her inflight meal, a novelty at the time.

I am writing this to you from the plane, which is at a height of about 14,000 ft. above sea level, shooting through the atmosphere at the rate of about 230-250 miles per hour. We are well above the clouds -- the skies above are a muddy blue -- the sunshine is bright though the sun is low in the horizon. At 6:30 P.M. drinks and biscuits were served. At 7 P.M. the dinner started -- tray after tray emerged from the little room in the fore of the plane. It is [a] remarkably good meal, and well served. Tomato juice, a hot meat preparation, boiled peas and potatoes, salad -- including one bit of asparagus, which I love very much. There was [a] nice white roll and butter, very good fruit salad and custard, coffee with cream and sugar, [a] biscuit and one piece of candy. The salt, pepper and mustard also found a place on the tray. The fork, knife and spoon were carefully wrapped in cellophane paper. It was a big meal which I could not quite finish.

Evidently, Alankaram was not quite as thrilled with her traveling companion.

I have by my side a most uninteresting companion -- rather a deaf man of 69 who is an American by choice and Irish by birth. He tried a few minutes ago to pick up some conversation. With the engines roaring loudly it was impossible to continue the talk for more than a few seconds.

In 1949, transatlantic travel involved multiple stages, as the airplanes of the time didn’t carry enough fuel to fly nonstop from London to New York. As described by Alankaram:

We left London airport at 11 AM, [and] landed in Shannon airport (Ireland) at 12:40 for lunch, and to take more passengers. At 2 PM we were climbing into the skies again. We have been flying since then -- 7 hours in all. I am getting stiff sitting the whole time. I believe in another 2-1/2 hours we [will] land in Newfoundland, and at 6 AM (but 12:30 AM New York time), we are expected to reach LaGuardia, the airport in New York. I am feeling a bit nervous about having to find my way about at dead of night in a new city… Many a person thinks I am lucky to be on this journey to America. I certainly looked forward to visiting the land of general admiration in the present day. But now that I am on the trip, I am not aware of any special excitement.

Despite her trepidation about landing in a new city in the dead of night, Alankaram eventually stayed on in the US for more than a month. She attended professional meetings and medical conferences in New York and Chicago, and then traveled to the west coast by train on the California Zephyr. She was greatly impressed by the glass-topped Vista Dome coaches on the train that afforded panoramic views of the landscape. Alankaram’s spirit of adventure and courage in traveling alone as a single woman in a strange country is remarkable, even by present day standards.

I sent a copy of Alankaram’s letter to the archivists at the American Airlines CR Smith Museum, which is located close to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. In response I received an email from Tim McElroy, the Head of Interpretation and Education at the museum. He thanked me for sharing the letter, noting that “it is interesting how such correspondence required patience that we can almost not imagine today.” He went on to add this historical note:

Your aunt was enjoying a short-lived transatlantic service provided by American Overseas Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines from the late 1940s. By 1950 American had returned to domestic [flights] [plus] service to Canada and Mexico. The transatlantic routes and aircraft were sold to Pan Am. It would be a few decades before AA returned to Europe.

In his book Empires of the Sky: The Politics, Contests and Cartels of World Airlines (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984), Anthony Sampson also has a short passage about this short-lived transatlantic service:

"...American Airlines… was allowed to take over the small American Export Airlines which had begun flying the Atlantic during the war; and American Overseas Airlines, as it was renamed, began flying DC-4s to London in 1945 -- the first scheduled Atlantic service by landplanes."

The reference to "landplanes" is to distinguish these aircraft from flying boats, which accounted for the bulk of transatlantic civil aviation up until then. From the American Airlines letterhead, we can see that Alankaram flew from London to New York in a Lockheed Constellation, a propeller-driven airplane with four engines and a distinctive triple-tail design.

As Alankaram noted in her letter, the American Airlines Flagship Constellation made stops in Shannon (Ireland) and Gander (Newfoundland) before arriving in New York. Due to its strategic location on the Great Circle route, Gander was for several decades the first landing point for aircraft flying from Europe to North America. Until the coming of long-haul jets in the 1960s, Gander played host to thousands of flights each year. Even after that, it continued to play an important role as a landing point for planes from the USSR and other Communist bloc countries en route from Europe to Cuba and points south, as they did not have permission to land in the US. With the end of the cold war, Gander lost its prominence in international aviation, as planes from all over Europe could fly directly into New York and other cities in the US.

Interestingly, Gander briefly reclaimed its moment in the sun in the early years of the 21^st century. Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US closed its airspace to all inbound flights. All the US-bound airplanes that were already in mid-air had to be rerouted. Many of them were diverted to Gander, which was equipped with ample runways and a vast airport terminal. As reported by CNN (https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/gander-international-airport-canada/index.html), 38 international flights landed in Gander. More than 7000 displaced air travelers were welcomed with open arms by the residents of the city (with a native population of just 12,000), invited into their homes, clothed, fed and looked after. This heartwarming story eventually inspired the Tony Award winning musical “Come From Away,” which was staged on Broadway in New York, and on the West End in London.

xxxx

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