Storied life ends at 106
Pelham’s sweetheart, Dorothy Rungeling, accomplished many firsts for female pilots in her lifetime — and it didn’t stop there
Dorothy Rungeling, perhaps the most celebrated woman in Canadian aviation, the first woman to serve on Pelham town council, and an author into her ninth decade, has died at age 106.
She was the first Canadian woman to hold an airline transport licence, was the first to solo a helicopter, earned numerous air race trophies and was awarded the Amelia Earhart Medal.
She was named to the Order of Canada for her aviation accomplishments which over the years had earned her the nickname Canada’s Flying Housewife.
The woman who died Saturday and who would have turned 107 in May was also known around town as an entrepreneur, a musician and a painter.
Friend of 20 years, Mary Beattie described Rungeling as a trailblazer who was always encouraging other people, especially women, to do well and go for what they wanted in life. She didn’t judge people, which may have been because of some of her own unconventional accomplishments.
Beattie said even into her old age, Rungeling was always inquisitive and curious about things and ready to learn. She was up to date with technology, for instance.
“Physically, she was old, but mentally she was aware of everything around her,” she said.
Many people, she said, saw Rungeling as always on the go — and they thought she would always be going and going.
Pelham Mayor Dave Augustyn said Rungeling is a “true inspiration,” someone who had a big impact on Pelham, Niagara and Canada with her achievements.
“Imagine the changes that she witnessed and was a part of,” he said with awed reverence, noting she lived a very active life.
In 2015, through an act of the provincial legislature, Pelham’s airport was renamed Niagara Central Dorothy Rungeling Airport. Sadly, there are still no signs with her name on it at the facility.
The adopted daughter of noted Canadian poet Ethelwyn Weatherald, started flying in 1948. After numerous $10 lessons, she got her licence Aug. 10, 1949.
“Why did I want to fly? I didn’t. I was scared to death of it,” she said in a Tribune interview at age 103.
She recalled then one day she went to then-named WellandPort Colborne Airport along the Welland River in Pelham. Her husband Charles and her then fiveyear-old son went for a sight-seeing ride.
“I thought I’d never see them again when they left the ground. I was just praying all the time that they’d get back again.”
Back safely on solid ground, “Barry looked at me and said, ‘OK, Mommy, it’s your turn now.’ What do you do in a case like that?” she asked with a chuckle. “So I went, and was completely captivated.”
But instead of the view, she was more interested in the plane’s instrument panel, curious about all the gauges and wanting to know more about their relevance to flight.
“So I had to go again, and that started it rolling.”
Born in 1911, in her younger days she trained horses, shot skeet and rode a motorcycle.
While playing clarinet in the Ridgeville Band — she also played saxophone, violin and harmonica — Charles came along one night when the band was playing, each member earning $2 for the night. He asked her to dance. It was the 1930s, and the start of a lifelong love affair with a man who encouraged her to fly.
It wasn’t until 1943 that they wed. As a couple they started a used car business that evolved into a Welland garage called County Motors, a business for British cars such as MGs and Packards.
The same year Rungeling obtained her private pilot’s licence, her husband bought her a twoseater Luscombe Silvaire 8A plane. She traded it the next year for a four-seat Piper PA 20.
By 1950, she had made her first long-distance flight, to Cuba and back.
It was at this time that Rungeling, now a member of the Ninety-Nines — a sorority of sorts for pilots that was initiated by Amelia Earhart in 1929, its name believed to derive from the number of women who first joined the group — began competing in air races. Rungeling was often the only female among a pack of about 20 to 30 men who would race coast to coast in speed-handicapped planes, usually covering distances of 4,000 kilometres.
She competed three times in the All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race — nicknamed the Powder Puff Derby — across the U.S. At one time she and her co-pilots wore matching aprons that read: “To hell with housework.”
Rungeling also competed in short-distance precision flying competitions, winning the Governor General’s Cup at the Canadian National Exhibition in 1953 and 1955. She loved the thrill of races. “They were just a lot of fun,” she said. “I guess it’s just like any other sport — hockey, baseball — people get involved and just stay there.”
During her competitive years, Rungeling marked many significant milestones.
She earned her commercial pilot’s licence in 1951, instructor’s certification in 1953, her senior commercial pilot’s licence in 1954 and in 1958 her airline transport licence — the first Canadian woman to do so.
It was also in 1958 that she became the first woman to pilot a helicopter solo.
On the ground, she also played instrumental roles.
In the 1950s, she was appointed business manager of the flying club at the airport, and fought for the airport’s preservation during difficult financial times. Welland’s mayor in 1954, Alex McCrae, credited Rungeling with being “instrumental in the survival of Welland airport.”
Also in the ’50s — a first for eastern Canada — she led an effort to have an air marking atop the huge metal roof of the Atlas Steels plant. It was something that was becoming popular south of the border.
In this case, and with the backing of the Ninety-Nines who proposed to do all the work, ‘ Welland’ and an arrow was painted to guide wayward pilots to the nearby runways.
“But Atlas Steels didn’t like that idea. They said ‘we’re not going to have any women fall off our roof.’ So they painted it,” she recalled in 2015.
“Not too long after that, a chap came in and said it saved his life. He was in a storm and he had no idea where he was and was just going to sit down in a field … when he saw the Atlas sign and he came into Welland.”
A thank-you letter from that pilot was included in one of Rungeling ’s two newspaper-sized scrapbooks, which she donated to the archives at Brock University in St. Catharines.
Also in those books are newspaper clippings, photos and tearsheets from her days when she was paid to write a weekly column for The Tribune that kept readers informed about news at the airport, the gossip, plus tips on learning to fly. Then managing editor Tommy Morrison dubbed her “the aviation editor.”
Rungeling also wrote for Air Facts flying magazine printed in New York City. She won the Air Industry and Transportation Association of Canada Award for her aviation articles twice.
In 1964 she became the first woman to sit on Pelham town council.
She stopped flying in the early 1970s when she and Charles, since passed, started becoming more active in sailing.
She was awarded an Amelia Earhart Medallion in the early ’80s in recognition of all her achievements, and in 1999 she was inducted into the International Forest of Friendship, in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart’s birthplace and site of a museum and forest of trees from all 50 U.S. states.
In 2003 she was inducted into the Order of Canada.
At age 90, Rungeling would start writing four books, including about her days of flight and of her mother.
The first book she had a hand in writing, The Road to Home, was done in partnership with Pelham Historical Society. This is where she met Mary Lamb
, who was actually interested in learning about her poet mother.
After reading some of Rungeling’s articles for The Tribune, however, Lamb and Rungeling started working together, writing and editing the book. Lamb then went on to help her edit her other books.
“She was really a remarkable woman in that aspect,” Lamb said of Rungeling’s desire to pen three more books after that first went out.
When the Canadian Forces’ Snowbirds precision flying team performed from the local airport in 2008, they created a smoke heart dedicated to Rungeling.
Despite all of her achievements, Beattie said Rungeling was “very ordinary and normal,” not flaunting around her titles and awards.
Lamb agreed that Rungeling wasn’t a particularly public person.
Beattie said Rungeling didn’t want a funeral, but there will be a celebration of her life in the near future. The details are still being worked out.
Augustyn said he would ask for a moment of silence during Tuesday night’s council session in her memory.
On the day of the celebration of her life, the town’s flags will be lowered to half-mast.
— files from Greg Furminger, and Laura Barton