Greta Sends a Giggle

So I open a text on the phone and it's this pic. I can't see it too clearly so I forwarded it to my email.

And I think....."Huh?"

But then I read the little cards. There is some glare on the bottom one, so I Google "Leigh Wade"
So here's the deal, according to the Air & Space Museum at the Smithsonian.....this is "Maggie". Yeah, "Maggie the Spider Monkey".

I read the article "Magellans of the Air"
On September 28, 1924, crowds cheered and sirens shrieked as the Army Service pilots known as “the Magellans of the Air” landed at Sand Point Field in Seattle, Washington, after completing the first round-the-world flight.

They had set off on April 6, some six months earlier, determined to circumnavigate the globe: eight men, four airplanes, eight stuffed spider monkeys from the Ambassador Hotel (see photo), and one stowaway from the Associated Press. (Ok, the AP stringer didn’t climb aboard until the group reached India.)

The group endured Arctic snow (dodging icebergs because of low cloud cover), survived the blistering heat of India, and made their way through thick fogs and violent storms. The four ships—the Seattle, the Chicago, the Boston, and the New Orleans—were specially built by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Not all would complete the journey: The Seattle crashed in the fog on an Alaskan mountainside, and the Boston sank near Iceland. (The crews survived.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Ambassador Hotel's manager gave eight stuffed spider monkeys, taken from the lobby's imitation palm trees, to the fliers as mascots. He promised $50 for each monkey safely returned
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can read the rest of the article here.

So the long and short of it is........the pioneer Army aviator, Major General Leigh Wade, USAF (ret) flew the "Boston" along with her crew and his spider monkey....."Maggie"!

Thanks Greta!