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SATURDAY EVENING POST, FEBRUARY 12, 1949

[[image: black & white photograph of a standing military officer, pen in hand, and a woman seated in front of him]]
[[caption]] Mother Tusch presides over another wall signing. The names in the picture include Nimitz, Arnold, Pangborn and Doolittle. [[/caption]]

Mother of Aviation

UNLIKE most mothers, Mrs. C. A. Tusch encourages wall scribbling. Never, in fact, has she erased a single scrawl from the otherwise spotless interior of her cottage beside the University of California campus in Berkeley.

The scribblings, forming a frieze up near the ceilings of dining room, parlor and hallway, are the autographs of thousands of aviators - war aces, explorers barnstormers and just plain guys who like cloud hopping. Gray-haired, widowed Mrs. Tusch has mothered them all, and they've written to her from airports the world over. Among those who have made their mark at 2211 Union Street and in history - are Gen. H. H. Arnold, Bernt Balchen, Adm. Richard E. Byrd, Jimmy Doolittle, Amelia Earhart, Adm. Chester Nimitz and Eddie Rickenbacker.

When Billy Mitchell climbed the signers' stepladder, he christened the house the Shrine of the Air - otherwise the Hangar - and called its keeper Mother of Aviation. The names stuck. Every flier sees why when he is adopted, a ritual entailing endless hot cinnamon rolls, steaming coffee and plenty of shop talk.

Mother Tusch's hobby dates from the first World War, when she opened her home to lonely flying cadets. Co-eds were invited, feeds given, dances held. Little Irene of the pigtails, one of Mother Tusch's two lovely daughters, pasted airplane silhouettes of that period on the walls. Her mother thought them pretty, but protested when Charles Anderson - future flying sheriff of Nebraska - worked his name into the decoration.

"Don't mark the walls!" Mother Tusch cried. "Too late," Charley laughed. "I'm the first to sign. And there'll be a lot more. Someday you'll be glad.'

She was - and soon. Signatures came fast from local fledglings and visiting world-shrinkers: Paul Garber, early air-mail pilot whose wings she wears; Walter Hinton, first transatlantic pilot; Ruth Law, first woman to loop; Russell Maughan, first to span the continent, dawn to dusk; Clyde Pangborn, of the first nonstop transpacific hop; Mason M. Patrick, former chief of the United States Army Air Service; Sir Hubert Wilkins, north transpolar and Antarctic flier; and all members of the historic first round-the-world flight. Meanwhile, to learn what her "boys" were doing, Mother Tusch also went flying; as a  passenger, she eventually covered more than 100,000 miles. It was relieving to get out into the open spaces, for a deluge of war trophies had been crowding her into the back of her home.

What of the Hangar's future? When the university campus expands and engulfs the cottage, Mother Tusch hopes it will be moved intact to the new national air museum at the already interested Smithsonian Institution. General Arnold encouraged her by saying, "This is the finest collection of Air Force souvenirs in the world. I'll do all I can to see that they are properly located."

Of all her mementoes, though, the priceless signatures comes first. But as one wall signer said, "Mother, there is one autograph missing. Your own."
- NELSON VALJEAN.

Reprinted by special permission of the
SATURDAY EVENING POST
Copyrighted by the Curtis Publishing Company, 1949