The Whirly Girls

I left LA and pulled into Houston on Thursday February 21st. On Friday morning I went to the airport to meet Sandra Steffensen who flew in from Orlando. She's a Whirly Girl friend from Denmark who just this month got her Green Card - Hurray !! We hope she finds a flying job REAL SOON!

We went straight to the Convention Center and started setting up the WG Booth at the Helicopter Association International annual meeting and convention. These ladies raise an incredible amount of money to support their scholarship program.

And one of their main fund raisers is the booth at HAI. Five intense days of setting up, being nice to people and taking their money, and then taking it all down, packing it up and FedExing it back "home".

Here's Bev Haug-Schaffter WG#465 the Fearless Leader of the Booth.



She actually knows where everything is and how much it costs. We usually man - woman? - the Booth with 4 volunteers. We really struggle when Bev isn't there but we kinda make it up as we go and sell a ton of stuff.

Another picture of the Booth, with Bev and Tina Schleidt, a WG from Germany.



Along with all the WG's who work the booth are a couple of husbands who have been drafted and three men whose only connection is their love of these women who are the Whirly Girls. Two of them have a business reason to be at the HAI but spend a major part of their time helping the WG's. Ian works as a Controller at the landing site, Peter is an aviation journalist and I'm simply unable to stay away from my WG friends. Check out my Blogs from March 1 and 4, 2007 for some more background.

I first met the WG's at their 1985 Banquet in New Orleans. After the dinner, 6 of them and I went down to the French Quarter. In a bar on Bourbon Street, we were asked to quiet down or leave. Yes, on Bourbon Street. I called Mary Ann on the phone the next morning and said, "I've met some WONDERFUL new friends." I partied with them once a year. When the kids got older and Mary Ann could travel with me, she fell in love with them, too. Of the 6 from 1985, I'm still in touch with three of them. And they were at the convention! TRISH - are you listening? Trish promised me a picture of the 4 of us. But I haven't received it yet.

As usual, along with meeting up with old friends, I met some brand new WG's who will continue expanding the career possibilities of women in aviation.

We said "Good By" on the 26th. But it wasn't over yet. Teen Corey, Past President of the WG's invited some of us to her ranch just north of Houston.

THAT story comes next !

ANOTHER BIG IN-BETWEEN

Around the turn of the century, three of my Great Uncles left Sullivan County, NY and moved to the Cajun country of LA. They married three Cajun sisters and became what my Dad called "devout Catholics" - since they had a whole bunch of kids, and Dad always said when he saw a huge family, "They're either devout Catholics or Protestant sex fiends." Did I mention that these Great Uncles were on my Mother's side?

I had not visited down here since I was 16. And since a large number of the early descendants were girls, the Bossley name wasn't as common as you would think with all those kids. I wasn't sure if I could find anybody I had even met before.

When I Googled "Bossley", I found a lot of people in Australia and an author in Banff didn't sound like a cousin. Then, on the fourth of fifth page, there was a reference to a Ludger Bossley on the Army Air Forces forum. Since that name sounded vaguely familiar, I clicked through. The post was actually from someone unrelated, trying to find information about his Great Grandfather who had been a WWII Bomber pilot shot down over Italy. He listed the crew members of the airplane and "Ludger Bossley" was a gunner on that plane. Two people had written saying that they thought it was a relative of theirs, did the original posting person have any information about Bossley. He didn't and the posting ended. But both people left their email addresses.

Neither was named Bossley, so I would not have found them were it not for this one link.

I emailed them both saying, "My Grandfather was one of the Bossley brothers who did not move South. The only name I definitely remember is a cousin about my age nicknamed "Robbie". She lived in Crowley, LA. I think her Mom's nickname was "Monk." She visited us in NY with her parents in the summer of 1963. Do you know her?"

The first response was from Judy Schick from Michigan who said,

"Yes, I sure can help you!! My mother was Bessie Mary Bossley, born April 05, 1908, and was your mother's cousin. My mother's father was Albert. Attachment with this E-mail includes a picture of your grandmother with her son Clifford, and two other pictures taken in 1955, when we visited you and your family in New York. One of your grandmother, and one of your mother, dad and you, with my younger brother, Ed, sitting on the porch of your store. I remember it so well. We walked down the road and went swimming."

Judy and her brother have been doing genealogical research for several years and Judy kidded, "How many cousins do you want to find?"

Here's the picture she mentions - with me at age 9




The second response came an hour or so later from Shane Zentner, now living in Colorado.

"Well, Thomas, you have looked in the correct place. Robbie Bossley Guidry is my mother and Mary Margret 'Monk' Bossley was my grandmother. Ludger Bossley is my grandfather who lives near my mother in Fort Collins, CO."

So a link to a Forum that really had nothing to do with my family led me to the exact people I was looking for.

PS - I just tried to go back and confirm the info but the link has been taken down. So if I'd searched 60 days later than I did, I'd have found nothing.

Judy and I talked on the phone several times, remembering her visit and talking about people I might contact while in LA. I'll definitely stay in touch with her.

One of the people she named that I remembered was Floyd Trahan. When I was about 12 he and his wife visited us in NY and we all took a trip to Quebec and Nova Scotia so he could find his Cajun roots. He passed away 12 years ago but I found his son, Floyd Jr who still lived in Crowley.

So on the way to Houston, I spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot and had dinner with Floyd and his wonderful wife, Valerie. They were gracious hosts, OF COURSE- they ARE Cajun, after all ! I had what may be my last crawfish before heading north. And a delightful, "catching up" talk with my cousins.

Life - and family - is good !