A One Man Woman
Mae Post with her father Dave Laine, waiting for Wiley to land after
the globe circling flight with Harold Gatty.  July 3rd, 1931
    She was a lovely 17-year-old with a steady beau.  He was
a stocky short man with an eye patch.  Twelve years her
senior, he had a dash and flair that would make his name
famous worldwide.  Only a few short days after his arrival in
her town, she climbed into his airplane, a WW I surplus
Curtiss Canuck, and they eloped.  She never looked back.  
Although she was uncomfortable with the media focus and
adulation of crowds that followed her famous husband, she
always said she would do it all over again.  Her name was
Mae Laine, a one man woman, and her man was Wiley Post,
whose exploits placed him on par with names like Lindbergh
and Earhart.

    He flew around the world twice, the second time being the
first round-the-world solo flight, at a time when most people
viewed aircraft with suspicion and distrust.  He was an
inventor, daredevil, air explorer and pioneer.  What kind of
woman would throuw her future into the lap of a man like
Wiley Post?

    "She was one tough lady!" states her niece, Mary Collins.  
Mary knows because she always lived close to her aunt and
actually lived with her for a time while her mother recuperated
from a serious illness.

    Mary has a trunk full of memorabilia that her aunt kept
from the days when Wiley was flying.  The majority of the
material consists of magazines and newspaper clippings
featuring Post and his far-flung adventures, but many of the
photographs show a woman.  She is slim, serious, attractive
and nearly always waiting.  The camera shows her looking at
the map of Wiley's flight, in a newsroom examining the ticker
tape telling of his successes, gazing at the sky for the first
sign of the plane, but always waiting.

    Those who think Mae Laine-Post was a meek little
homebody need to take another look at this remarkable
woman.  She had the toughest job of the two for starters.  
Wiley knew where he was, knew he was safe.  She could only
wait to find out, Mae was strong-willed.

     A definite personality in her own right, she thought
nothing of jumping into the car and driving from one end of
the country to the other and even on into Mexico to be there
waiting when Wiley came down.  In the days when gas
stations and mechanics where not on every corner, the roads
were mostly poor and women simply did not travel alone, Mrs.
Wiley Post had to be classified as one gusty gal.
    She never learned to fly, but in the early days she
barnstormed with Wiley.  Knowing that she hated bumpy
flights because tghey made her queasy, her husband took a
friendish glee in taking her to the roughest part of the sky for
her ride.  This could account for the fact that ususally she
stayed on the ground and waited, content to keep up with
Wiley by radio and newspaper.

    Keeping up with a man like Wiley Post was no easy task.  
He and Mae were both born in East Teas near Grand Saline.  
They were cousins and both from farming families.  When
Wiley left home at about the age of 16, Mae was still a little
girl.

    He had decided at an early age that he was no farmer,  In
fact, the only crop he ever raised was a small patch of cotton
his dad gave him to work on for his own, hoping, no doubt,
that the boy would come to appreciate the joys of farming.  
Wiley did a good job with that cotton patch.  He tended it
faithfully and when he sold his harvest, he took the $85 it
brought, went to Kansas City and enrolled in auto mechanics
school.

    When he finished school, he worked in garages,
mechanic shops and oil field, but the lure of the airplane was
strong.  He began to do stunts for pilots: wingwalking,
parachute jumping - anything to be in the air.  His parents
were definitely not thrilled by their son's obsession.  His
father wnet so far as to hid his parachute once when he was
home, but nothing daunted w\Wiley  His sights were set on
the sky.
Loney Courage
       Fianally, hungry for a plane of his own, he returned to
the oil fields to try to raise the money to buy one.  It was
while working on a grig that a metal splinter cost him his
eye and, ironically, gave him a chance to fulfill his dream.  
He took the compensation money and bought a wrecked
World War I Curtiss-Canuck.  He paid eight-hundred
dollars for the airplane and four-hundred to an aircraft
mechanic to rebuild the old plane.

    Wiley was ecstatic.  In his exuberance, he had
overlooked one small detail..he didn't know how to fly.  
Soon he solved the problem by convincing one of his pals
from the "Flying Circus" to teach him.  His second solo
flight was to Marlow, Oklahoma where he gave George
Carter, a blind oil land man, a ride.  His second passenger
was Pearl Carter, the 12-year old daughter of George
Carter.

    He flew whenever and however he could barnstorming,
stunt flying and even carrying the mail.  Another pilot of the
time was quoted as saying that Wiley Post had a special
instinct for flying.  Mae put it more succintly,  "He flew by
the seat of his pants," she said.

    On one of his many hops around the country he
stopped off to visit his parents and other family members.  
One of them, Cousin Mae, was all grown up.  She was all
but promised to Wiley's brotgher, Gordon.  Nevertheless,
only a few days later, Mae flew away with Wiley, leaving a
stunned Gordon and devastated parents behind.

    The pair barnstormed together for a while, but the
responsibility of a wife made Wiley realize that he had to
have more stable employment.  He heard from a friend in
Oklahoma City, Pal Briscoe that F.C. Hall, an oilman in
Chickasha was looking for a personal pilot, so Wiley
applied and got the job.

    Hall owned an open cockpit Travelair 3000, but after a
few too windy trips, he told Wiley to go pick out the best
enclosed cabin airplane he could find.  The plane was a
Lockheed Vega that hall named after his daughter,
"Winnie Mae".  Wiley flew for Hall until the depression
caused a slump in the oil business which caused the sale
of the airplane.  Wiley went to Lockheed as chief test pilot
where he first became interested in the possibility of flying
in the stratosphere.

    A year later, which business improving, Hall asked
Wiley to buy another Vega, which he named the "The
Winnie Mae of Oklahoma".  With Hall's backing Wiley
entered the Chicago-Los Angeles non-stop derby.  
Despite going lost for a period of forty-five minutes, Wiley
won the race beating the second best airplane, the first
Winnine Mae.

    While derby judges wwere still asking "Wiley who?" the
aviator, previously unkown, was already formulating plans
for a new goal.  Post teamed up with Australian navigator,
Harold Gatty.   (Part II next week)
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