Interviewed on December 17, 2019
The interview describes Rochelle Malatesta’s work with United Air Lines as a weather clerk from 1955 to 1956, as well as the three generations of her family’s history with the airline; description of her decision to work for United, the hiring process, and her work in the weather and meteorological department; experiences as the daughter of a well-known United employee; description of San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in the 1940s and 1950s; childhood in Cheyenne, Wyoming and San Bruno, California; early flying experiences; early death of her father, Uberto “Bob” Stafford Webb, his worf for Varney Air Lines in 1926 in the maintenance department and for United when the two airlines merged; stories of her father and his work, the family’s life in Cheyenne and Salt Lake City, and his World War II era work in Alaska; his experiences working on airplane search and rescue in Wyoming and Utah, and the close-knit community of airline personnel in that era; description of her mother, Helen Reed Metcalf Webb, her hiring following her husband’s death facilitated by President William “Pat” Patterson; her training and work in the accounting department; an accounting puzzle involving a large amount of money solved by her mother; description of her grandmother, Agnes Jenkins Metcalf; her for William Hoare for United; her choice of the fabric for the first stewardess uniforms for United; and encounters with Ellen Church.
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