Recently I read in the paper where 92-year-old Ruth Elaine Blow passed away at the Willows in St. Joseph. As a young boy, I remember her as Elaine Miner. She lived across the street from the Luthringer family, where I spent a lot of time playing at their house with the four Luthringer kids.
You have probably read in in my column the Luthringer name mentioned quite a bit.
I can still see the little gray coupe Elaine used to park in her folks’ driveway (see how good my mind goes back those many years). She drove this car to the country schools where she taught. I also remember she was a pilot, a rarity, a woman flying back in the 1930s.
So years ago when I was thinking about writing a column about our airport and the pilots I knew, I thought of her and decided to stop and see if she remembered me. She said sure she did and won’t you and your wife come in.
I told her I had been writing some articles for the paper and she said she reads them all.
About her flying, she said she too her lessons over at the Benton Harbor airport. If I’m not mistaken, she said she used to ride over there with Walt Engle, another flier I used to know.
She said she remembered how the field they took off and landed on used to have mud puddles you had to look out for.
I’m guessing it had to be in the ’30s when she took her lessons and she was one of, I’m sure, a small number of girls who did this at the time.
As we left her house after our nice visit, she said, Charlie, I’d rather you don’t put my name in your article, which I didn’t do.
I wouldn’t put anyone’s name in if they didn’t want it.
I only saw Elaine twice after our visit, once when we were voting at the Armory and a couple of years ago at the grocery store. She came up to Peg and me and you could hardly hear her talk. She said she lost her voice after her husband died (she married John Blow in her later years).
When I read of her death, I called my friend Mary Alice, her old neighbor, and she told me the last time she had seen Elaine, Elaine told her the same thing about her losing her voice after her husband died.
In our talking, we said we both remembered her folks.
Mary Alice said she used to go over and sit on their front porch swing with Mrs. Miner.
Mr. Miner had a furniture store on S. Front that was where John and Elaine had Johnny’s Shop for years.