Canadian Aviatrix #10 – Grayce Hutchinson (1911-1998)

Grayce Sandra Margaret Hutchinson was born in January 1911 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to Alexander Wallace Hutchinson (a barrister) and Elizabeth Ellen Stewart.

 

	1911	1916	1921	1926	1931
	Saskatoon SK	Saskatoon SK	Saskatoon SK	Saskatoon SK	Saskatoon SK
Alexander	33	40	44	50	55
Elizabeth	23	28	32	38	43
Jean Elizabeth	1	6	11	16	-
Grayce Sandra	5m	5	10	15	19
Ruth Hope	-	20 days	5	10	14
Gwendolyn Louise	-	-	2	6	11
John	-	-	-	4	9
Ellen	-	-	-	1m	5

 

On 12 October 1929, Grayce passed her flying test and received PPL #387, making her the tenth female pilot in Canada and joint first in Saskatchewan (Nellie Carson was the other). She was 18 years old.

Photo: Star Phoenix (July 19, 1929)

Grayce was active in the Saskatoon Aero Club, taking part in spot landing competitions and dropping bouquets of roses over the crowd at the 1930 Saskatoon Exhibition. She was highly skilled at flour-bombing contests and was hired by the Budweiser Beer Company to drop pamphlets.

On 8 August 1930, she was in a serious car accident. Her boyfriend (TJ Matthews) was a travelling salesman for Fry’s Chocolate and the couple were “on a pleasure drive” at 1.25am when they crashed into a train at a railway crossing. Grayce was thrown out of the window, then dragged beneath the wreckage for 75 yards. She suffered from severe shock and was in grave condition – “Officials said it was inexplicable how the couple escaped death in the smash-up”. Grayce was released from hospital in late October.

(The girls of the family had a series of auto accidents around this time. In April 1930, Jean was a passenger in a car which crashed into another one, breaking one woman’s leg. In July 1931, Hope ran over a city construction foreman and killed him. Although Hope was only 15 years old and unlicensed, the death was held to be accidental, as it was impossible to see the man and no protective measures were in place.)

In 1932, Grayce (through her father) sued the Canadian National Railways, TJ Matthews, and J.S. Fry and Sons for $50,000 in damages. The case was settled out of court.

She moved to Montreal in the last 1930s. On 28 October 1939, Grayce married William Howard Solomon, Lieutenant of the 24th Field Battery RCA. The couple had two children – John and Carolyne. She gave up flying at her husband’s request and settled into family life.

Grayce was known for her volunteer and community work, especially with the Canadian Red Cross. In 1980, she moved to Thunder Bay be close to her daughter’s family.

She never lost her love of flying and, in 1984, she attended the opening of the Western Canada Aviation Museum and met the Queen. In 1995, she was interviewed about her flying days, although she was now going by her middle name and mother’s maiden name – Sandra Stewart.

Sandra died in 1998, aged 87.