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EARLY BIRDS OF AVIATION
4 WEYBRIDGE ROAD
MINEOLA, L.I., N.Y.

Mr. Stanley Hiller                                May 1, 1967
1 Hiller Drive
Oakland, Calif. 94618

Dear Mr. Hiller:

Referring to the bunch of junk submitted to Early Bird Oliver Run by Mrs. Ethel Jean Kibbe of Alameda, a writer for the San Francisco Examiner, in which she claims to be "Oakland's Pride", by being the first woman aviator 1911-12

This whole bunch of articles, all of which seem to have been written by her, looks like the biggest lot of baloney ever handed to me to pass upon. I have never seen her name in any way connected with the names of any of the California pioneer fliers and it certainly is not on the Early Bird plaque recently unveiled at the San Francisco Air Terminal. She may succeed in kidding some of the readers of her column in the Examiner, but not me.

I am enclosing a list of about twenty-one names of the earliest women fliers who qualified in U.S.A., France, Belgium, Germany and Russia, given their solo dates and license numbers. Maybe when she reads this impressive list of pioneer women pilots, who are recognized worldwide, she will modify her claims to fame.  

I am in receipt of a letter from Tony Stadlman which you requested him to write, cautioning me about there being some doubt as to Mrs. Kibbe's eligibility. 
I can assure you that it is being held in abeyance and nothing is being done with.

I had to smile at her column published in the Alameda Times Star, in describing her attendance at the premieres of the two films, one called "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" in 1965, the other the "Blue Max" in late 1966, as the 20th Century-Fox called me in to see a preview of both films at their laboratory on West 55th Street, to authenticate the names of those old Nieuports, Spads and other planes used in the pictures.