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Ruth Law Oliver

Famed Pioneer Aviatrix Dies
By Michael Harris

[[image - photograph]] 
[[caption]] RUTH LAW OLIVER A Life of accomplishemnt [[accomplishment]] [[/caption]]

Ruth Law Oliver, the first woman to loop the loop, the first person to fly a plane at night and the one-time holder of the Chicago-New York aerial speed record, died Tuesday in San Francisco at age of 79.

Ruth Law was 25 when she took off on November 19, 1916 in a Curtiss biplane from Grant Park on the Chicago lakefront.

Six hours and seven minutes later she landed 680 miles away for refueling at Hornell, N.Y., setting a distance record.  A young Army lieutenant named Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, who was later to command the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, changed her spark plugs.

Then Miss Law continued east to Binghamton, N.Y., where she spent the night. She landed on Governor's Island in New York harbor the following morning.

RECORD

She not only set a new distance record in the first leg of her flight and a new speed record overall, but she did it in a plane that even in 1916 was considered decrepit.

Despite her triumph, Miss Law was disappointed she did not complete the trip within a single day.

"The wind was blowing like sin when I left Chicago," she said, "but soon it swung around from the north, and that was the last help I got from the weather man... Two miles from Hornell I realized I would have to make a landing. My gas had given out, and there was only one thing to do-glide down and make the best landing I could."

She explained why she hadn't continued beyond Binghamton after dark.

CHANCES

"It may be that women take more chances than men, but I'm usually cautious," Miss Law told a reporter. "When I've done night flying with fireworks, I've always had lights on the machine to watch my instruments (but) these had been taken off...

"I probably could have descended on Governor's Island all right, because arrangements had been made by Major General (Leonard) Wood to have lights placed for me, but another town (en route) would have been a different proposition."

No one seemed to find fault with Miss Law's momentary bit of timidity.  She was received by President Wilson, who she had saluted by flying upside down above the White House.

On another occasion in the same year, Miss Law spun her brilliantly lighted plane toward the President's yacht in New York harbor, gracefully gliding off when she was 200 feet overhead.

INSPIRATION

Miss Law said she was inspired by her brother, Rodman Law, known as the "human fly," who won fame when he climbed the outside of the Flatiron Building in New York and then returned to earth in a parachute.  He was also fired from a gun before coming to earth in a parachute - something that Miss Law never wore.

Nor - until she took a commercial flight as a passenger - did Miss Law ever strap herself into a plane.

"It would have been considered a mark of cowardice," she said.

Miss Law bought her first plane in 1912 from Orville Wright when she was 21 years old.

In 1913, a report came out of Garden City, N.Y., that Miss Law had set a women's passenger-carrying record by carrying Mrs. Richard P. Sinclair and Miss Pearl McGrath over Long Island for about 10 minutes at an elevation of 800 feet.

"The latter (Miss McGrath) sat on the lower wing," the account said. "She is a New York debutante of last winter."

UNIFORM

In 1917, Miss Law was the first woman authorized to wear a military uniform, but she was denied permission to fly in combat.

"Women flyers could do a lot of good, of course, just by teaching flyers, but I don't want to be an aviation professor," Miss Law said after completing an unauthorized swoop over Paris.

"I seek activity, danger, accomplishment."

Later that year Miss Law got enough danger for one night, when her plane's gas tank exploded over Lexington, Ill. She put the plane into a sharp dive, and the wind blew out the flames. She escaped with a few face burns.

After the war, there came Ruth Law's Flying Circus, a three-plane troupe that left throngs at state and county fairs astonished.  She flew her old Curtiss, and the two male pilots went up in Jennys in close formation with her.

Finally, her husband, Charles Oliver became nervous.  Oliver, who managed the Flying Circus, confided that he was becoming distressed by watching his wife fly 25 feet above racing cars on country tracks.

"He was afraid I'd be killed," Miss Law said.

In 1922, Miss Law announced she was retiring to home and hearth.

"After all," she said, "nothing else counts with a woman."

THOUGHTS

There were second thoughts. In 1927, Miss Law considered trying a nonstop summer flight to Paris.  But it was Charles A. Lindbergh who made the celebrated crossing.

In 1946, she spoke of flying again and observed, "It wouldn't surprise me to see a flight to the moon one of these days."  In 1950, Dr. Cecil R. Smith, the "flying dentist" of Burlingame, took her up for a flight and handed her the controls.

"I found I still knew how," Miss Law said.

Miss Law and her husband, Charles, lived in Beverly Hills from 1922 to 1946, when they moved to San Francisco.  Her husband died the following year.

Miss Law, who lived at 34 Rosewood drive, busied herself with bowling, golfing and the activities of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Eastern Star and aviation pioneers.  She is survived by three nieces, Marion Kempe of San Francisco, Katherine Ernest and Virginia McGreecy, and a nephew, William R. Law.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Halsted and Co., 1123 Sutter street, with officers of the San Francisco Chapter of the Eastern Star officiating.  Burial will be in Lynn, Mass., where Miss Law was born.