Fayette Woman – Essie Moseley

NOTE: This was the first part of a Fayette Woman Magazine cover story that appeared in September 2003. Miss Essie died Feb.12, 2009, at 90.

When friends urged Esther Baer Moseley – “Essie” – to write a book about her life, they should have suggested three books:

One describing her childhood as next to youngest of 13 orphans who somehow made their way in the world;

One about life as a flight nurse in World War II; and

One about marriage and motherhood and traveling the globe with her corporate pilot husband.

She wrote them all, compacted as one: Lady Don’t Stop Here. The little autobiography, subtitled “The true story of a young woman’s adventures as an Air Evacuation Nurse in the Army Air Corps of WWII,” was self-published in 1988.

Essie Moseley is nearly 85 now, and every bit as vibrant as the 20-something beauty on the cover of her book. She travels less than she did during and just after the war, plays golf regularly and, except for controlled diabetes, enjoys good health.

The National Women Veterans Foundation sponsored the first national memorial event in 1989 to honor women veterans of World War II, in Atlanta. It was a salute to the 350,000 women, every one a volunteer, who served in the Army, Navy, Marines, WAAC-WAC, SPARS, WAVES, and W.A.S.P. during that war.

Another monument honoring all servicewomen was dedicated recently by the Women in Military Service for America. It forms a gateway to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

The primary purpose of memorials like these is to bring to public attention the gallantry of the women who have served in the military – from the American Revolution to Iraq – an estimated 1.8 million women.

And Essie Moseley is one of them.

Despite vowing they will not continue their annual reunions, veterans are drawn to these events. “The monument is beautiful,” Miss Essie says. “But there were only about eight of us there this time.”

It’s hard to picture this diminutive grandmother of five in the role of air evacuation flight nurse with the Army Air Corps, picking up the wounded under fire, flying “the Hump” with Flying Tigers Gen. Claire Chennault, working beside the famed Burma surgeon, Dr. Gordon Seagraves.

In her sunny Peachtree City home, as though looking for answers, she pages through albums, now crumbling with age, and opens a copy of the manuscript of her remarkable life story. It’s all there, all the elements of a 1940s tearjerker: tragedy, an orphaned family of 13 children trying to stay together, the horror of India’s poverty and the terror of war, even a poignant love story.

Essie was the twelfth child of German immigrants who managed a ranch in Trementon, Utah. Her mother died of a hemorrhage in childbed two years after Essie was born, leaving 13 children under 18, all born between 1903 and 1921.

A year later, their father, Mathew Baer, died in an automobile accident. Although his insurance and investments provided for his brood of orphans, times were hard as they struggled to stay together, finish their schooling, and care for the youngest siblings.

Nonetheless, Essie remembers childhood as a happy time. Her account of growing up in Peoria, Ill., where the family moved to be nearer to relatives, evokes scenes from Cheaper By the Dozen. There was fun and mischief and growth as these young people went their different ways to adulthood...

Essie graduated from nurses’ school in Peoria, Oct. 18, 1940, and after a year of hospital work, hired on with American Airlines just for the glamour of it. They called them stewardesses then, and they had to be registered nurses and single. Essie fit the bill.

Her flight to New York City to attend stewardess school was the very first time she had ever been in the air. It was an evening flight and the city lights looked magical to the awed fledgling.

At that time, the average flight attendant worked only six months until she married and had to leave her job. By staying on, Essie won the seniority to choose to live in Chicago with five other stews, including her lifelong best friends Bernice McDonald and Polly Curry.

“We only had four beds for the six girls, but it didn’t matter, as there were never more than four at home at the same time,” she says.

Once trained and over early bouts of air sickness, Essie and her friends enjoyed their new career. It was easy to get to know their passengers, since there were never more than 21 of them, and some were famous. She met Elizabeth Taylor, then 12, just after making National Velvet. The young actress had “the most beautiful eyes and dark hair I had ever seen,” Essie says.

Their social lives were wonderful: “We had all the dates we wanted and we led busy, happy lives.” But on the horizon was the war in Europe, with more and more military personnel flying far away from home, off to war – and lonely. “The stewardesses, being nurses, began to feel unpatriotic, and increasingly, we wanted to find a way to contribute to the war effort.”