Helen Hodge Harris (1892-1967) was among the first women to earn a pilot's license. She was therefore one of the few women among the

Early Birds of Aviation Gallery The Early Birds of Aviation is an organization devoted to the history of early pilots. The organization was started in 1928 and accepted a membership of 598 pioneering aviators. Membership was limited to ...

. In addition she became a proponent of flight safety. She later became supervisor of a machine shop.Early Aviators site
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Early life and first marriage

Hodge was born in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

on August 2, 1892. She was educated at the

Brownell-Talbot School Brownell Talbot College Preparatory School is an independent, co-educational, college preparatory day school located in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. It serves students from preschool through grade 12. History In the mid-19th century, Omaha j ...

(then Brownell Hall) before moving to

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

with her family. They appear to have settled in Oakland by roughly 1909, when she married Ralph Newbre. In June 1916, Hodge filed for divorce, claiming Newbre had been unfaithful. A July article mentions her living with her father, and she seems to have reclaimed her maiden name. However, it appears that they may have reconciled: a 1919 article refers to the Newbres as husband and wife, and the book ''Before Amelia: Women Pilots in the Early Days of Aviation'' seems to imply that they stayed together until Ralph Newbre's death in the 1930s.

Aviator

Hodge and her twin sister, Florence "Dot" Hodge, took flying lessons together at

Silas Christofferson Silas G. Christofferson (1890 – October 31, 1916) was an American aviator. He was the brother of Harry Christofferson, a fellow Early Bird, and the husband of aviator and X-ray technician Edna Christofferson. Christofferson was born in Polk C ...

's school in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

, after being initially rejected due to their gender. Their instructor was aviator Frank Bryant, who taught them to fly on a

Curtiss Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decade ...

-type biplane. A

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

profile written in July 1916 described Helen as "the more venturesome of the couple". Their father, J.B. Hodge, reportedly disapproved of them learning to fly, but "accepted the situation philosophically." Helen Hodge Newbre in plane

Hodge trained at the Christofferson school for six months. During one flight while Hodge was at an altitude of 1500 feet, her plane's motor mount broke, causing the motor to come loose. Hodge managed to land safely, "much to the surprise of even her teachers." Hodge's first independent flight was made over

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

on August 19, 1916, and she received her pilot's license on November 12, 1916. At the time, she planned to become an exhibition flyer. Though she did perform several exhibition flights for the Christofferson school, most of her flights appear to have been simply for her own pleasure. Hodge was the eleventh female pilot in the United States to receive her license, and possibly the last American woman to become a licensed pilot before the start of World War I. During the war, she was a flight instructor for American cadets.

Later life and death

Hodge married Frank Harris in 1937 after moving to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. There, she opened a machine shop specializing in airplane tools. She supervised a crew of twenty men and fourteen women, and could operate machinery herself as needed. Frank Harris had passed away by 1950. Hodge died in Pomona, California, in 1967.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodge Harris, Helen American women aviators People from Omaha, Nebraska 1892 births 1967 deaths Aviators from Nebraska Aviators from California Members of the Early Birds of Aviation 20th-century American women 20th-century American people