CAROL SPECHT 1948 - 1949 FLIGHT ATTENDANT DEN? Note with Challeneger pic: The group of stewardesses hired by Challenger Airlines about 1948. Male stewards were the first cabin caretakers when I was hired 1947. Man is gov WYO + his (two) attendees. Alice Wright, Mary Jones, Sylvia Diedricks, Ellie Bastar, Isabell Wilson, Vicky Marason, Mary Warhover, BJ Schider, Carol Speck (mispelled). Kitty Knete, Gov Hunt (3), Libby Decker (chief stewardess), Pat Larson. -Jack Schade (3/10/11) OBITUARY Carol Ruth Hilton, 85, died of lung cancer on January 10 in Portland, Oregon. She was an award-winning journalist who wrote for newspapers throughout Washington. Carol was born December 22, 1925, in Los Angeles. She grew up in Southern California and graduated from the University of Southern California, where she was a Chi Omega. In 1949, while flying as a stewardess for Challenger (later Frontier) Airlines, she met John Edwin Hilton II. They married one month later and moved to the Seattle area. Carol began her journalistic career as a reporter for the weekly Bothell Citizen in Bothell, Washington. At mid-life, facing the prospect of covering the local July 4 celebration for the eighth time, she returned to school. She earned her Master of Arts degree in Communications from the University of Washington. She later worked for the School of Communications as a research associate, then as liaison between the school and the newspaper industry. She went on to become a writer and section editor for the Yakima Herald Republic and, later, for the Daily Olympian. Throughout her career, Carol was active in the Washington Press Association and Women in Communications, winning awards at the state and national level. "She was known for her interviewing skill and a writing style that drew readers' interest into whatever she wrote about," said Linda Daniel, of Portland, a longtime friend and colleague. "She was genuinely interested in all the people she met and had a keen sense of social justice," Daniel continued. During the years when Carol was not a working journalist, she was active in grass-roots opposition to the Vietnam War and in support of equal rights for women. At that time, she also served as a Democratic Party precinct committeewoman. Carol enjoyed live theater and concerts. She supported the performing arts in Seattle, as she did in every community where she lived. "She had a theatrical flair for costume and loved to dress up," Daniel recalled. "She was among the first women who dared to wear pantsuits - albeit very elegant ones - to one of Seattle's big formal events. We called her Brenda Starr after the then-popular fashionista/reporter of the comic strip." In retirement, the Hiltons lived in Seattle's Lake Union houseboat community and traveled throughout the world. They moved to Holladay Park Plaza, a continuing care retirement community in Portland, in 2004. Carol, and her late husband, John are survived by their son, John E. Hilton III, and his wife Kerstin. Services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, January 29, at Portland's Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, 1535 N.E. 17th Ave., followed by a celebration of life at nearby Holladay Park Plaza, 1300 N.E. 16th Ave. The family requests that no flowers be sent, and suggests that any gifts in Carol's memory be sent to Seattle Opera, the Northwest Center for Wooden Boats, or Planned Parenthood. -The Seattle Times on January 28, 2011 Posted at the FL Club: Three more deaths in the FLamily: Obituaries for three more FLolks found on the internet. Leon Prokuski Pilot, 1978-8? http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/denverpost/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=143578440 Bobbie Lenahan Director-stewardess services, 1966?-75? http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/staugustine/obituary.aspx?n=roberta-lou-lenahan&pid=147333036 Carol Hilton flight attendant, 1948?-49? Challenger http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/seattletimes/obituary.aspx?n=carol-ruth-hilton&pid=148137135 Post your remembrances of these FLolks. -Jake Lamkins (3/12/11) Carol Ruth Specht, stewardess, DEN, on the Jul 15, 1948 Challenger Employees Directory. -Jake Lamkins (3/12/11) OBITUARY 'Jack' Hilton, civil engineer who loved sea John "Jack" Edwin Hilton II met his future wife flying 1,000 feet above Red Rocks Park in the Rocky Mountain foothills outside Denver. By Sara Jean Green Seattle Times staff reporter John "Jack" Hilton, retired state Department of Transportation engineer John "Jack" Edwin Hilton II met his future wife flying 1,000 feet above Red Rocks Park in the Rocky Mountain foothills outside Denver. Mr. Hilton was a student at the Colorado School of Mines in February 1949 and was on the last of six half-hour flights to study the area's rock formations. He struck up a conversation with Carol Specht, a flight attendant who had agreed to work on her day off. So many students got sick from the turbulence that day that after the third flight, "we had to return to the hangar and hose the plane out," recalled his wife, Carol Hilton, of Portland. But not Mr. Hilton, who was a bomber pilot in the South Pacific during the waning days of WWII. The two flirted over an ammonia inhalant and chatted about classical music. Before the DC-3 charter plane landed back in Denver, he'd asked her out to lunch. They married a month later. Mr. Hilton was a civil engineer who graduated from the University of Washington in 1953 and worked for the state Department of Transportation until his retirement in 1982. He died Sunday, Aug. 2 from complications of Parkinson's and Lewy Body diseases at Holladay Park Plaza, a Portland retirement community. He was 85. Mr. Hilton asked that his brain be donated to the Oregon Health & Science University in hopes it could help researchers better understand the diseases that ravaged his mind, his wife said. Mr. Hilton was born Jan. 26, 1924, in Glenwood Springs, Colo., the elder of two sons born to Howard and Zella Hilton. The family moved to Kirkland when Mr. Hilton was a child and he graduated from Juanita High School. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in May 1942 and flew B-29 bombers in the South Pacific. At the end of the war, he returned to the Denver area, where he spent a semester at the Colorado School of Mines, his father's alma mater, before transferring to the UW. Over the course of their 60-year marriage, Mr. Hilton and his wife lived in Bothell, Yakima, Olympia and La Conner. They also lived in a houseboat on Seattle's Lake Union and were members of the Corinthian Yacht Club. They moved to Portland in 2004. "He really enjoyed life and he was a very friendly guy � he could meet almost anybody and strike up a conversation," said Brian Henkel, of Bellevue, a longtime friend and fellow engineer who met Mr. Hilton when he started working for the state in 1956. "He was a real fun guy and he certainly liked to finish up the day with a good cocktail." Mr. Hilton was a fan of opera � his favorite was "Tristan und Isolde" � and was a loyal subscriber to Seattle Opera from its inception in 1963, his wife said. In 1974, Mr. Hilton and his wife bought a 50-foot ketch named "Bluebird of Thorne." A lifelong sailor, Mr. Hilton skippered the double-masted boat from New Zealand to Hawaii. "We did a lot of traveling, and not just on the boat," Carol Hilton said, recalling trips through the canals of France and down the coast of Central America. She described her husband as "quiet and funny" and said he was passionate about bridge, sailing and music. In 1995, the couple was on a cruise that started in the Bahamas when a fellow traveler, a physician who had Parkinson's disease, questioned Mr. Hilton about his handwriting and shuffling gait, Carol Hilton said. He recommended that Mr. Hilton see his own doctor when he returned home. Eight years after Mr. Hilton was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, doctors at Oregon Health & Science University also diagnosed him with Lewy Body disease, a type of dementia. In addition to his wife, Mr. Hilton is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, John E. Hilton III and Kerstin Hilton, of Portland; his brother Howard Judd Hilton Jr., of Venice, Fla.; and his late cousin's wife, Ruth Coffin Schroeder, of Seattle. A celebration of Mr. Hilton's life will be at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Holladay Park Plaza, 1300 N.E. 16th Ave., Portland. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations in Mr. Hilton's name to Seattle Opera (1301 Fifth Ave., Suite 3024, Seattle WA 98101) or the Northwest Parkinson's Foundation (400 Mercer. St., Suite 401, Seattle WA 98109). -The Seattle Times on August 9, 2009 CAROL RUTH HILTON 22 Dec 1925 Died 10 Jan 2011 Age 85 At 97232 Portland, OR SSN issued in California -SSDI (3/12/11)