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Archives at The Museum of Flight


Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons Northeast Airlines Flight Attendant Collection

 Collection — Box: 1
Identifier: 2008-08-27

Contents of the Collection

The Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons Northeast Airlines Flight Attendant Collection is a small collection comprised of textual and visual materials collected by Lyons during her 1951-1953 flight attendant career with Northeast Airlines.

Textual materials include four logbooks for Lyons, which detail flights, times, weekly hours, and her expenses from June 1, 1951 through December 31, 1952; Northeast Airlines ephemera, such as decals, passes, comment cards, and the sheet music for "Song of the Yankee Fleet" [Northeast Airlines by-line]; business records, such as pay stubs, inter-office correspondence, stewardess labor agreement; potential transfer details, newsletters, training acceptance, and suggestions from Lyons to Northeast Airlines; Aero Club of America reservation card, guest list, and program, 1952; assorted newspaper clippings with topics related to Northeast Airlines and/or Lyons; two satirical Christmas poems tailored for aviation; and a “Michael D. Petrosky” business card attached to picture of the Groton Airport in Groton, Connecticut. many of the items appear to have been removed from a scrapbook.

The visual materials consist of ten photographs and nine color transparencies. The photographs range in size from 3x5" to 8x10" and are mostly black-and-white, but two images have been colorized. The prints are all modern digital reprints of older images. Lyons is featured in most of the images, which are a mix of portraits and snapshots. Northeast Airlines aircraft and personnel are also depicted, including Captain Dick Dwyer and First Officer Dick Kennelly. The color transparencies are very underexposed, so the images are obscured. These are also images of pilots and flight attendants, although the aircraft are from Northwest Airlines.

Dates

  • Creation: 1951-1953

Creator

Language of Materials

All materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research and is availab ein the Dahlberg Research Center. For more information contact us.

Conditions Governing Use

The Museum of Flight (TMOF) Archives is the owner of the physical materials in the archives and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. Written permission must be obtained from TMOF archives before any publication use. TMOF does not necessarily hold copyright to all of the materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners. Consult repository for more details.

Biographical Note: Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons

Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons was a flight attendant in the early 1950s.

Jean Marie Granfield was born February 8, 1931 in New London, Connecticut to John and Ida Granfield in 1932. After graduating from high school in 1950, Granfield was working for Col. Michael D. Petrosky of the Groton Flying Service at the Groton airport as his secretary when he took her for a ride in an airplane. That is when Granfield decided that she wanted to be a stewardess.

Granfield applied to work for Northeast Airlines stationed out of Boston, Massachusetts in 1951 and was hired. Her training took place in Boston. On her first flight, she flew to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Northeast Airlines flew DC-3’s at the time and their routes took her to stops throughout New England. She worked for the airline until 1953 when she was married and moved to the Seattle, Washington area to be with her husband, Herbert Gordon Lyons, who was in the Coast Guard.

Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons died October 13, 2013 in Issaquah, Washington and is buried at Tahoma National Cemetery.

Source:

Biographical note based on donor information and records on Ancestry.com.

Full Extent

.25 Cubic Feet (1 2-inch legal size document box)

Existence and Location of Copies

Materials from this collection have been digitized and are available at The Museum of Flight Digital Collections.

Separated Materials

A 1951 Annual Report was separated to the Archive's Trade Literature Collection. The following material has been separated from the archival component and is kept in Objects storage:

  • Northeast Airlines uniform with cap and pins, blouse [blouse may not be original]
  • (2) clear Plexiglas luggage crew tags
  • Gold bracelet with medallion “Miss New England Aviation 1952, First Princess”

Title
Guide to the Jean Marie (Granfield) Lyons Northeast Airlines Flight Attendant Collection
Status
Completed Level 2
Author
J. Parent
Date
2019; 2025
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
English
Edition statement
2nd edition

Revision Statements

  • 2025 October: Updated subjects, biographical note and S&C note.

Repository Details

Part of the The Museum of Flight Archives Repository

Contact:
9404 East Marginal Way South
Seattle Washington 98108-4097
206-764-5874


The Museum of Flight | 9404 E. Marginal Way South | Seattle WA 98108-4097 | 206-764-5874
Contact us with a research request
curator@museumofflight.org