Cloud Clippers
About This Book
Cloud Clippers opens with a frightening moment in the air. A powerful storm is closing in over Amarillo, leaving the pilot with a grim choice between flying a canyon in a light plane, which she would never attempt, and landing on a ranch. The aircraft suddenly drops, and her passenger, Fred, finds his head has punched through the inner canvas roof. The book traces the life of Marie Rae Miller Hubert, who worked as a teacher, meteorologist, artist, writer, poet, and mother, but whose greatest passion was flying. She earned her private pilot's license at twenty-four and took out a bank loan to buy her first plane, a Piper J3 Super Cub. She earned her commercial license at twenty-seven, taught aviation at a military school in 1945, set a Piper Cub altitude record in Oregon in 1950, and went on to shape generations of students as a high school teacher. At twenty-eight, Marie married Frederick Emil Hubert, a Navy veteran twenty-six years her senior. The couple made several long cross-country flights, many of them marked by storms and near misses, and eventually settled in Florida. When Marie was forty and Fred was sixty-six, they were surprised to learn they were expecting a baby. Her daughter, Karen, became her mother's co-pilot and travel companion, and their many adventures together forged an unbreakable bond. Marie owned three airplanes, each called Cloud Clipper, and used them to complete twelve circuits of the United States. As a child, Karen flew with her mother on four cross-country trips in a 1958 Forney Aircoupe, a plane that still flies over Oregon. After selling her last aircraft, Marie kept traveling by car, RV, cruise ship, and airline into her eighties, often with her Siberian husky. At seventy-nine she drove alone to Alaska for two months. She visited every state, mostly by small plane, car, or RV, as well as Mexico, Canada, numerous Caribbean islands, and most of Europe. She took seven cruises and reached forty-eight of the sixty-three U.S. National Parks. The book includes Marie's original flight logs, photos, newspaper clippings, and stories she wrote about her travels. Long before feminism was a common label, she held feminist views, and her own voice comes through across her ninety-four years. At its core, the book is a daughter's love letter to her mother.
ISBN: 9781088056882
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