My parents were married in 1947. This was 2 years after World War II ended and housing was still in short supply. My grandfather worked for the railroad and the family knew Gertrude Murray and she agreed to rent the lower flat to them. They raised 4 children here. We all have special memories of growing up in the neighborhood.
Raymond Schneider
Raymond was the youngest, he is standing next to his mother
My father was born on a farm in Clarkston, Washington in 1916. He stayed in Clarkston until he joined the army. He worked as an aircraft mechanic and was stationed in England during the war.
Raymond standing next to bomber in England WW2
When my father moved to San Jose he could only find work in construction. After the war jobs were hard to find for everyone. My father received his private pilot's license and went on to get a commercial and instructors license. My mother was his instructor. He later worked as an aircraft mechanic at Hiller Aircraft Corporation. He and my mother both taught flight instruction at San Jose Adult School now San Jose Junior College. In 1951 he was president of The Santa Clara County Airmen's Association.
I remember my father as being a very hard worker. We only saw him on the weekend. He would leave for work before we got up and would come home after we were in bed. He loved to work on engines and did his own car engine and airplane engine repairs. On the weekends my parents would take the family on airplane trips to Half-Moon Bay, The Nut Tree and Columbia State park.
During the '50's my parents always owned a plane and by the time I was 12 my father had started to teach me to fly. A few months later in 1961 he would die in a plane crash and that changed everything. My mother was now the sole support of 4 kids and her mother. She gave up flying because she could not risk having anything happen to her, leaving us without a parent.
Clara Flocking-Schneider — First San Jose Woman to Receive Private and Commercial Pilot’s Licenses
Clara age 1 year with her parents
Clara in her flight suit 1942
1941 she was the first woman in San Jose to receive her commercial pilot's license. By 1942 she had become a flight instructor at age 24 and was a civilian navy flight instructor during World War II. She was a small woman, four foot ten inches tall and weighed about 90 pounds, but she had no trouble handling the planes or her students. She often talked about how much she enjoyed teaching the navy pilots. All the pictures I have of her show her smiling.
After the war she tried to continue flying but the pilots returning from the war were given the jobs. In 1945 she was teaching ground school at San Jose Adult School evening classes. That was where she met my father. He was one of her students. She returned to teaching and taught different subjects at Hoover Junior High until she retired at the age of 62.
Her great joy and comfort was our old house. She loved antique furniture and our house was full of it. When she and my father purchased the house she bought all of Mrs. Murray's furniture for $10. At the time they were just old furniture and paintings. Now they are antiques.
After my mother passed away I went through her personal items to see what to keep. She had kept a box of newspaper clippings about her flying career. I was amazed to see her picture and a story on the front page dated June 1940 along with headlines reading PEACE TERMS ARE REVEALED BY NAZIS.
This is a poem that my mother kept on the wall by her desk until she died. I can not imagine what she felt as a 24 year old woman flying airplanes when most women did not drive a car.
Clara and her navy instructors plane
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter—silvered wings;
Sunward I’ ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod —
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr