The Flying Seven formed in 1935 and were Vancouver’s all-female aviators’ club
Vancouver’s aviatrices:
This is one of my favourite photos. It ran with a story in Sensational Vancouver and shows six members of the Flying Seven posed in front of the rocket ship at Vancouver International Airport. The Flying Seven were Vancouver’s all-female aviators’ club. Tosca Trasolini—second from the right—was the youngest member at just 29 in this 1940 photo. The others were Margaret (Fane) Rutledge, Rolie Moore, Jean Pike, Betsy Flaherty, Alma Gilbert and Elianne Roberge.
The club formed in 1935 after Margaret Rutledge flew to California to meet with Amelia Earhart, president of the Ninety-Nines—an American organization for women pilots. There weren’t enough experienced Canadian pilots to form a chapter, so the Canadian women started their own.
Flying Flappers:
Newspaper editors called them the “Sweethearts of the Air,” “flying flappers” and “angels,” defying what a Chatelaine article had asked a few years earlier: “Are women strong enough to fly with safety? Are they fitted temperamentally to operate aircraft.” The women flew Fairchilds, Golden Eagles, Fleets and Gypsy Moths—they said that a woman’s place was in the air. Fane and Roberge held their commercial pilots’ licence.
The members of the Flying Seven attended an airshow sponsored by the Vancouver Junior Board of Trade in 1936. “They stopped us at the gate and told us we couldn’t go in,” Trasolini later told the Vancouver Sun’s Stuart Keate. “We were just as interested in the different machines as a lot of men around the place. But don’t worry, we made it.”
The enterprising Trasolini got hold of an admittance ticket, had a look around and one by one the other six women went in to see the aircraft.
Strathcona-born Trasolini, told Keate that she’d always “been crazy to fly” she just didn’t have enough money to do it until she got a job as Angelo Branca’s legal secretary.
Related Stories:
- The Cambie Street Rocket Ship
- Rollie Moore, The Flying Seven and Burnaby’s Hart House
- Tosca Trasolini and the Flying Seven
For more stories like this one, check out Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
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11 comments on “The Flying Seven and the Cambie Street Rocket Ship”
Great stories, as usual. I didn’t know about the first appearance of the rocket ship as a PNE Parade float. Note: There weren’t;t many Trsolini families in Vancouver then. Did one of them go on to found a successful paving company that did business all over?
Thanks David! I don’t know about the rest of the Trasolini family, but it’s quite possible they are related.
A word used in earlier days to describe a female pilot was “aviatrix”, pronounced ā-vē-ˈā-triks. I flew to Winnipeg just before Christmas, and our Air Canada flight was piloted by an aviatrix, if I can re-introduce that word.
I remember when the rocket was at the old airport, now the South Terminal, in the 1960s, and was indeed very rusty but still had that Buck Rogers look to it. I believe it was mounted on an electrical substation. It was something that definitely did not have a place at the new airport when it opened in 1968.
I had never seen the photo of the rocket in the 1936 PNE Parade. It seems odd that a farm tractor is pulling such a great Moderne design. A streamlined 1936 Chrysler Airflow Imperial automobile towing the float would have looked much better.
The Italian community has published a lot on Tosca Trassolini, and we researched the two French-Canadian women who were members of The Flying Seven, Alma Gilbert (née Gaudreau) and Élianne Schlageter (née Roberge). Élianne was born in Prince Rupert in 1909. When she obtained her pilot’s licence in 1936, she was one of only four women in Canada with this licence. Margaret Fane of the Flying Seven was also one of these four women. Élianne is buried in the Abbey Mausoleum in Burnaby. Rose-Alma was born in 1895 near Rimouski, QC, one of 14 children. She obtained a private pilot’s licence. For more info one these two Francophones, visit our virtual exhibition on them athttp://www.shfcb.ca/aviatrices-bienvenue
Maurice Guibord, Société historique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique, president@shfcb.ca
Thanks Maurice, this is great information!
Eve – If this is the same ‘Margaret Rutledge’ (you have it as Rutledge) – check out the BC Labour Heritage Centre video clip (3 minutes) about Margaret and her flying career. Google search by her name and the BCLHC and the link should come up. The clip is one of 30, part of the Working People series frequently aired on Knowledge Network.
Always interesting to see old photos of my grandmother (by marriage), Elianne.
Yes David Gibson that is the same family. I attended Eric Hamber with Juliana Trasolini and they are also neighbours at Point Roberts on Edwards Drive.
The float pix is crazy. How many more out there I wonder. Again Iament the end of events like the PNE Parade.
And holy Buck Rogers on the rocket ship. That futuristic design was incorporated in cars. Cadillac in particular with the fins models with taillights rocket shaped in red of course.
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