There are none like her today.
It was 1934 when Dorothy got tired of watching her husband and his friends having all the fun darting about the skies and then bragging about it on the ground and got her own pilot’s license.
Of course, there was a minor delay when her instructor, who was supposed to administer her final flying test, didn’t show up. It seems he was helping Amelia Earhart check out her plane in Los Angeles in preparation for an assault on the coast-to-coast speed record.
Dorothy didn’t meet Amelia until 1936, but when she did the two had a good laugh over the episode of the missing flight instructor.
Dorothy flew an OX-5 "Eaglerock" with her husband, Lloyd. The plane was based in the mid-1930s at an airfield (actually a pasture) owned by the Ardis family. The land was rented to a dairy which sublet portions that were used as an airstrip. What the cows thought of all the goings-on is pure conjecture. The "airstrip" ran between Clark Avenue and Lakewood Boulevard north of what is now Somerset. Access was by way of a now defunct road called Cerritos.
The pilots who used the field called themselves the Clearwater Flying Club, and called the pasture Vultee Field.
The Ruethers later both flew out of Long Beach, but they always had a soft spot in their hearts for the old pasture.
When World War II arrived Lloyd flew for the 6th Ferrying Group, transporting military aircraft from point to point across the U.S.
Dorothy went to work for Douglas and temporarily gave up flying. But after the war ended she resumed her air career and maintained her flying license until 1958.
She was also a member of the 99 Club (all women fliers), to which Earhart also belonged. And Dorothy was a charter member of the Aviation Breakfast Club.
As a member of the OX-5 Club she often flew her Eaglerock to Santa Paula where owners of classic aircraft gathered each year.
Flying in the 1930s had its bizarre moments. Dorothy often told of how an engine cylinder once fell off and bounced down a highway below her plane. There were several "dead stick" landings she accomplished when something went wrong with the engine. Once the wheels fell off after takeoff and she had to make a belly-landing.
If that wasn’t enough, she once sold a Fairchild she owned to a private party. The plane was later confiscated when it was found to be carrying contraband across the Mexican border. Dorothy had a tense time convincing the authorities she no longer had an interest in the plane.
She died three years ago after a daring and interesting life. Her relatives include a daughter, Betty Ann Randolph, a sister-in-law, Betty Cooper, and a nephew, Dick Ruether, well known locally as the executive director of the Teachers Association, the Downey Education Association and the Teachers Association of Norwalk-La Mirada.
Women fliers aren’t that common, even today. But in 1934, aviation was barely out of its diapers. Women like Dorothy and Amelia told the men of the barnstorming era they (the ladies) could fly too, and then they proved it to them.
Hats off to the ladies.