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[[note]] Died Dec 1-1970 [[/note]]

First Woman to Loop Plane Dies

At a time when women had just won the right to vote in America, Ruth Law Oliver, who died Tuesday in San Francisco, was wearing black satin jumpsuits and flying a biplane upside down 25 feet off the ground.

And that was only the frosting on the cake.

Mrs. Oliver, who was 79, was one of the nation's great aviation pioneers. She bought her first airplane from Orville Wright in 1912 and went on to a career in the air that few, male or female, could equal.

She was the first women to loop the loop, the first woman to fly a plane at night and a one-time holder of the New York - Chicago aerial speed record. She did it in six hours and seven minutes in 1916.

Mrs. Oliver was also the first women authorized to wear a military uniform, but bemoaned the fact that during World War I the Army wouldn't let her fly in combat.

She was the sister of Rodman Law, the famed "Human Fly," who once climbed the outside of New York's Flatiron Building and then was fired from a cannon while wearing a parachute - a safety device his sister would never wear. "It would have been considered cowardice," she said.

After World War I, Mrs. Oliver and her husband formed the Ruth Law Flying Circus and barnstormed the country's state and county fairs. She became a master stunt-flyer.

Her life was seriously endangered once - when her plane's gas tank exploded. She blew the fire out by putting the aircraft in a sharp dive then walked away with minor burns.

Mrs. Oliver retired in 1922 and moved to San Francisco from Beverly Hills in 1946. Her husband died the following year. The family home is at 34 Rosewood St.

Funeral services for the famed aviation pioneer will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at Halsted and Co., 1123 Sutter St.