| Summary: | Mrs. Jimmie Martin Marvels At Her Husband's Stunts. Mrs. Jimmie Mattern Marvels at Her Husband's air stunts. By MRS. JIMMIE MATTERN. WALLA WALLA, Wash., June 12. (AP)—I can't understand why Jimmie always wants to go on his daring air escapades. I'm not venturesome and I ask him, "Aren't you afraid?" "Of course, I'm not afraid" he answers. "If I were I wouldn't be going." I just can't understand him because I'm not that way at all. Jimmie started preparing for his solo flight just as soon as he and Bennett Griffin returned from their crackup last year in a Russian bog. It was his ambition to do alone what they were cheated by bad luck out of doing together. Saw Jimmie in March. I haven't seen Jimmie since March in Chicago, and since he isn't an ardent letter writer I haven't been kept posted on the details of his plans. He just tells me what he has in mind and goes his way. I don't interfere because he knows best and I don't know much about aviation. It seems sometimes as if it's more of a strain on the wife who stays at her knitting at home than on the pilot, but I feel that is my part. One thing that makes my lot easier is the confidence I have in Jimmie. If a plane can do it, it will do it for Jimmie. He dotes on thrilling air ventures, but he is really a careful and dependable pilot. He uses good judgment always and nothing ever excites him-as it does me. Refueled Bobbins' Plane. Jimmie is well acquainted with the stretch from Nome, Alaska, through Edmonton. He flew over that course twice when he was in Alaska, refueling Bobbins on his projected non-stop flight to Japan. Jimmie and I were married six years ago in Los Angeles after going together for a year and a half. Since that time he continually has had some sensational flight bug in the back of his head. Jimmie had a ship of his own when we were married and he did considerable commercial and movie flying in California. He sold his plane in 1928 and we went to Detroit, where he did commercial piloting. We went to Texas that fall and for two years he was an airmail pilot across the Mexican border. Mud Proves Undoing. One of his biggest disappointments was in the 1929 Cleveland air races. He had a fast plane all rigged up, but in flying to San Antonio for the start the cowling fouled and when he landed the plane stuck in thick Texas mud and he lost his chance. After getting stuck in another bog in Russia last year, it looks as though mud is his nemesis. After a whirl at selling and demonstrating planes, when he became a firm friend of Eddie Stinson, he became chief pilot for the Cromwell lines in Texas. He bought Carl Cromwell's private plane and rechristened it "Century of Progress," the present rebuilt ship, after Cromwell was killed in the east in an auto after Jimmie had flown him there. Met Griffin in 1932. Definite planning for the world flight started after he met Bennett Griffin at Hansley field, Texas, in February, 1932. Both had harbored globe-circling ambitions and they fast grew firm friends. They started preparing in April and July 5 they took off. They got along splendidly together but then Jimmie does with everyone. He is proudest of the records of the first nonstop to Berlin and fastest trans-Atlantic. Although I don't know lots of Jimmie's plans in advance, I know I'll learn them eventually and it saves worry in the meantime.
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