begin my first assignment as a line Captain, in command of my own airplane – something I had dreamed about and worked for a very long time to achieve. 

            The question of where to live was promptly settled for me by the two young children of my friends Clarence and Janeau Bates.  Clarence was managing the station at Fargo and was well settled with his family in a home not far from the airport.  Bob and Betty, the two young’uns, immediately upon hearing of my coming, had scoured the neighborhood and found a room for me to rent at their next-door neighbor.  This proved to be a very good thing for me, as it was convenient to spend a lot of time with my friends next door.

            Under the arrangement for the Company, Clarence and I were to share the flying, and the station managing, alternating between flight one day, station managing the next for each of us.  One of Clarence’s talents was a love for ‘ham’ radio.  (Amateur Radio).  He had a station in his basement where we all spent long hours each evening talking with ‘hams’ all over the world.  Because of his equipment, and the fact that our airplane had radio installed, we were able to communicate with each other on bad weather days, giving reports on weather conditions at Fargo for the returning pilot.  I became very comfortable using his ‘ham’ equipment from his home to advise him about conditions at Fargo.  This arrangement proved very beneficial on many occasions as weather reports were usually very scarce, hard to come by, and limited in content.

            The route we covered was a branch route to the normal main line which ran between the Twin Cities and Seattle, Washington.  There were rarely any passengers desiring to fly between Fargo, Grand Forks, and Pembina but it was an important mail run giving airmail service from Winnipeg, Canada to the United States.   During the winter of ‘34/35’ we flew only as far as Pembina where we transferred our mail to Canadian Airways which serviced the route from Winnipeg south to Pembina.  Our airplane was the Hamilton, powered with one engine, seats for 5 passengers, and was crewed by one pilot only.  It was a wonderful opportunity to gather experience and confidence for a newly updated Captain.  I truly loved the independence of being by myself, making all the decisions and coping with the numerous problems of flight in the winter months.  There was little in the way of flight assistance on this route.  The CAA, a government agency for servicing airways, was in the process of building a radio range at Pembina, this to provide electronic guidance along the route for the pilot.  Without such help, we were confined to navigating by resorting to map reading and dead reckoning (a nice term for guessing your way around).  Fargo and Great Falls already had such radio ranges, and the addition of one at Pembina would prove to be most helpful.  As a matter of fact, early Spring found the Department of Commerce beginning the process of building a radio range at Pembina.  A nice young fellow, John Street, was the engineer in charge of this operation--he and I often shared lunch in town together and grew to be close friends.

            And so I developed my skills, and confidence through those winter months, most often flying low to the ground, generally along the highway that served the route.  In that desolate part of the country there was never much activity.  The few farmers along the route were snowed in and didn’t move about much.  Their only activities were taking care of their livestock, awaiting the Spring thaws to begin planting of their crops.  With no passengers aboard, we then had no concerns other than to get our flight through and keep from getting into too much trouble.