Roots and wings

The Renshaw-Pan Am merger

Downer's career with Pan Am ran from 1940 to 1975.  Because of that, the history of the Mary Kay and Downer Renshaw family ran parallel with the history of Pan Am - including glory days, thrills of many aviation firsts, gutting through political turmoil and riding the waves economic ups and downs. 

Mary Kay and Downer were a perfect pair to take advantage of all that a Pan Am career could offer.   Downer had an absolute love of flying.   He told me many years later that "the take off of my last flight was as exciting as the take off of my first flight", 36 years earlier.   

He also had a natural affinity for change and travel.   Downer often volunteered for many of the assignments and concocted many last minute trips that have resulted in our rich family history.  But he could only do that because Mary Kay's spirit of adventure, natural optimism  and flexible nature made it work for the rest of the family.    I still live by the motto she developed in the many years of traveling stand-by:  "There's always room for one more!"

It's a point of great pride that I am a daughter of a Pan Am family.   So, every once in a while, I'll add in some Pan Am history and perspective to round out our story.      

Pan Am - and Downer - go to War

Downer flew military cargo air transport during World War II - flying out of Miami and Barranquilla, Columbia to North Africa and Teheran.

I've always described his assignment fairly benignly as:  "flying supplies to Africa and Europe. " Mary Kay reminded me recently that his return trips included flying home our wounded and dead soldiers. 

From:  The War Years, George Burns, Pan Am Historical Foundation. 

When the United States exploded into World War II, the world's only aircraft that could carry payloads across an ocean were nine Pan Am Boeing 314 flying Clippers and three that Pan Am had sold to Britain. The U.S. government promptly took over all of Pan Am's over-ocean aircraft, crews and operations.

Pan Am, its people and its aircraft, went to war as part of the U.S. military. Officially.

However, covertly Pan Am was already deeply involved in the world conflict. For many months, under a secret War Department contract, it had been building and equipping airfields along the Atlantic coasts of Central and South America; then from Accra, on Africa's West coast, to Khartoum, the jumping-off point to air-supply the war raging in North Africa. Soon, when the U.S. entered the war, Pan Am crews were ferrying bombers and airlifting cargo over these South Atlantic, trans-Africa routes; and ferrying fighter planes, shipped by sea and assembled in West Africa, to Khartoum.

In seven months of 1942, 1,445 war planes, plus tons of supplies and ammunition, were delivered to the British army being pushed toward Suez. At El Alamein, these planes and supplies helped reverse the tide of the campaign. Pan Am then extended its wartime ferry and supply routes, flying fighters and bombers for Russia to Teheran, and hauling cargo to India. Its DC-3s flew The Hump over the Himalayas, bringing fuel and ammunition to the Flying Tigers and supplies to Chiang Kai-shek in China. They evacuated 3,564 women, children and wounded soldiers from Burma as it was about to be overrun.

Today is a perfect day...

...to start this project.  Mary Kay and Downer were married 65 years ago, today - August 30, 1941.  They were married at the Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, Florida.  They had their reception at the Pan Am Terminal at Dinner Key, Coconut Grove.  This was also the home to Pan Am, then only 14 years old.

Mary Kay recently re-told me the story of how they met.   

Mary Kay was out with a group of friends for drinks, then off to the Coral Gables Country Club for dinner and dancing.   Downer was at the same happy hour and sent an "ambassador" to Mary Kay hoping that she would agree to an introduction.  Their first conversation was brief - both worked for Pan Am and they each knew of each other's family.

Later, after dinner, Downer - miraculously! Mary Kay says - was at the club where Mary Kay and her friends had gone to dance.  He asked Mary Kay to dance.  She agreed.  Ten months later they were married. 

There are a few stories of their whirlwind romance.  The most vivid is Mary Kay's description of Downer's plane arriving at Dinner Key terminal.  People would gather on the observation deck atop the Dinner Key terminal to watch the Clippers arrive.  It was usually crowded, especially on weekends.  Downer was a flight engineer, flying "air boats" at the time.  His job upon landing was to jump out of the plane onto the wing, grab the buoy with a grappling hook and pull the Clipper into the dock.  Mary Kay remembers that Downer took her breath away every time  he hopped out of the plane.  He was quite dashing  in his uniform, complete with a white silk billowing scarf and aviator helmet. 

The wedding date was determined by a new Pan Am assignment.  Not the last time in their lives that the next chapter would be signaled by a Pan Am assignment.  This time, Downer had to be in San Francisco in early September, 1941.  They had only a month to plan their wedding.    Mary Kay and Downer left the day after their wedding  for a week long cross-country drive/honeymoon.   

Downer bought a brand new car for the occasion - a convertible.   The drive was unremarkable except for sunburns, snow in Colorado (a first for Mary Kay), and some movie footage that we still have.

They settled in Berkeley, California.  Downer flew to Honolulu out of Treasure Island - in San Francisco Bay.  He was in Berkeley when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  He was immediately put on emergency standby alert.  Mary Kay remembers the fears about another attack.  Maybe California? 

No one knew what was going on.  Pan Am only knew that they wanted to get all the aircraft away from the west coast to protect the fleet in the event of another Japanese attack.    All personnel were told to report to the airport at once, in plain clothes.   (Does this sound like September 11?)

Amid the chaos and uncertainty, Mary Kay left the day after the attack -  December 8 - to be with her family in Miami.  Mary Kay, a young bride of 25, travelled alone at a time of national fear and anxiety about war.   She arrived in Miami - 2 grueling days later - where she was warmly greeted by a smiling Downer.   His crew had been assigned to ferry one of the mission critical planes from San Francisco to Miami.   

He soon received his next ssignment - he would be flying war transport out of Miami.   This was a miraculous turn of events for a young couple on the first few days of WWII.  At a time of relatively few soft landings for families, Mary Kay and Downer found their first of many to come.