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Roseville's ghost airport featured in new book (Part 2 of 2)
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Elliott's airport book share the history of women pilots and celebrities.
Historical tidbits connected to Michigan's aviation history are captured in the new book Roseville's Airport, written by 43-year Roseville resident Gail Elliott.
"I started the research in 2006, but it grew and grew," said Elliott, 70, and a retired medical technologist from Beaumont Hospital's Royal Oak Campus. "It started as just a report on the airport, but more and more information became available and led to the book. I finally had to stop writing so we could get it published."
Elliott's interest burgeoned during her membership in the Roseville Historical & Genealogical Society, where she's served as recording secretary for about eight of her 12 years with the group. The book was officially launched in September, 2008, in time for Roseville's 50th city anniversary festivities.
Because she is also married to a pilot, former United States Air Force Airman Second Class Harold "Bill" Elliott, her interests lie in all things airborne.
Airport Co-Manager Joyce Hartung, who shared a surname with one of the arifield's names, established a special trophy for the women who flew, awarding it eight consecutive years, from 1936 to 1943. Annual recognition was given to the most prolific female flyer for abilities in the following categories: acrobatic, spot-landing, paper-strafing, balloon bursting with propellers, ribbon-cutting, and bomb drops using a sack of flour and a ground target.
"Some of them actually flew their planes in high heels, too," said Gail Elliott. "Marion 'Babe' Weyant Ruth of the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame was one of them."
The still existing national female pilot's organization The Ninety-Nines - so named for the number of women who first joined - began their Michigan chapter at Hartung. Comprised of licensed American women pilots, the group was headed by Amelia Earhart.
Mere mention of her name brings Gail Elliott to note that Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart were both rumored to have landed at Hartung. Bill Elliott adds that Earhart's subsequent refusal to carry all the equipment she needed as well as her failure to master her aircraft's radio is probably the reason her disappearance remains an unsolved American mystery.
"It would seem she ran out of gas over the Pacific near Howland Island, and the lack of a trailing radio antenna, weather problems, and a navigator who didn't know how to use the radio either combined for bad results," he said.
Bill Elliott says that female pilots in general were not uncommon in the past, and were especially plentiful during WWII, when "they flew everything from bombers to fighters."
Another famous connection via Hartung/Roseville Airport centered on Eddie Stinson, a well-known aviator, who demonstrated his Stinson SM-1 Detroiter there in the mid-1920s.
Widely embraced by the Detroit business community, Stinson set up manufacturing there, in a plant at what is now Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. His crafts enjoyed commercial popularity and were instrumental in the U.S. military. Photos shot in Roseville of an early model were complete with tire-chained wheels for braking during the tough Michigan winter.
"Eddie Stinson came from a flying family," said Gail Elliott. "His two sisters both flew, but refused to teach him how; they said they were afraid he'd kill himself. Unfortunately that came true - he was killed in Chicago when he hit a guidewire at the age of 38."
Gail Elliott's contribution to history is championed by Roseville Public Library Archivist Jaclyn Saturley. She says the RHGS began the continuing process of recording oral residential histories in the late 1980s for its historical collection and encouraged Elliott's airport interest. Saturley gives the book high marks for re-capturing an important part of Roseville's history between the 1920s and 1950s, and cites anecdotes of her own.
The airport property was bought at one time by Adolph Komer, she says, who'd used government compensation money he received after being shot down in Berlin and held as a POW. Saturley also refers to a part the airport played in service to Britain's royalty.
"Because of Gail's book we have heard from so many residents - both past and present - who now find it easier to share important aspects of their own youths as well as airport memories with their grandchildren," said Saturley. "It's also resulted in the library receiving a 1941 film of the airport from a resident now living in North Carolina, which we are restoring."
Undeniably a long-dormant secret from a younger generation, Roseville's airfield is now being flagged by the community in a round-trip of renewed attention.
To get your copy of Roseville's Airport, contact the Roseville Public Library at (586) 445-5407 or order at the link below.
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