Edward Kirtland Hine was born on September 1, 1916 in Mt. Vernon, Washington. I suspect, but have never known for sure, that his first name came from his maternal grandfather, Edward John Turner. Kirtland was the maiden name of his paternal grandmother. His nick-name throughout his life was always Kirt, short for Kirtland, and, to the best of my knowledge, he was never called Edward nor Ed. Many people over the years, after verbally hearing the name, incorrectly assumed that it was spelled "Curt" or perhaps "Kurt". At the time of Kirt's birth his father had recently purchased a Dodge automobile dealership in Mt. Vernon (about 50 miles north of Seattle) after having lived for many years in Seattle. When Kirt was still an infant the Hine family moved back to the Seattle home where it had lived before venturing temporarily to Mt. Vernon a few years before. Kirt was born relatively late in the life of his parents, his father being 42 years old and his mother 41. He had only one sibling, a sister named Ruth, who had been born 5 years before him. Kirt would grow up in Seattle where he took advantage of the numerous outdoor activities the Pacific Northwest had to offer. Early Childhood Years Kirt's first Seattle home was at 707 23rd Ave. North in the Capital Hill area in a house his parents had occupied prior the the family's temporary move to Mt. Vernon. Photos of the home taken in 1912 suggest the house was likely new when the Hine family first moved in around the time Kirt's sister Ruth was born in 1911.
I don't know where Kirt attended
grade school but I suspect it was probably in the neighborhood where he lived.
Little has been passed on about his early childhood so I suspect that it was
probably somewhat uneventful. Evidence has survived that his parents
regularly took Kirt and his sister along on their vacations to remote Ovington's lodge
on Lake Crescent on Washington's Olympic Peninsula in the 1920's and 1930's.
In 1927, when Kirt was age 10 or 11, the Hine
family moved to a large and newly built home in an upscale and gated
Seattle neighborhood known as Broadmoor. The house at 1204
Parkside Dr. would remain Kirt's home till he settled as a young adult
on the East Coast. He would continue to regularly visit his father
and mother at his childhood home till his mother passed away and the house was sold in 1967, some
40 years later.
High School Years Kirt was an adventurous and somewhat mischievous teenager who, usually along with others, would pull fun, but mostly harmless, pranks on friends and neighbors as he was growing up. In her 2003 oral history his sister Ruth described him as a "rascal" and mischievous prankster. The pranks were generally of the caliber of decorating someone's yard with toilet paper. I remember hearing that as a teenager he managed to make some of the holes at a nearby golf course unplayable for a day or two but I can't remember the details of how. The Lakeside School
His high school years were spent at the private Lakeside School for boys in Seattle which had been founded in 1923 as a "college preparatory" school. It was both a day and boarding school. Since it was located only about 6 miles from his Broadmoor home Kirt attended as a day student. I don't recall father talking a lot about his experiences at high school so in the spring of 2005 I contacted the school and their archivist was kind enough to send me some valuable information regarding my father's years there and helped identify some of the photos found in father's effects after his death which I suspected may have been taken at Lakeside, but wasn't sure about. Lakeside was apparently not a large school in those days as a photo of Kirt's graduating class shows 11 students and a list of the graduates shows only 9 (perhaps some in the photo did not graduate with the rest of the class).
I learned from the archive material that father had attended Lakeside for 6 years when he graduated in 1935 so he would have entered in the fall of 1929 at about the age of 12. The archivist indicated that the school didn't publish a year book until 1939 (which explains why one was not found among Kirt's effects) but she sent me a copy of the June 4th, 1935 issue of the Lakeside Tatler (the school newspaper) which covers the graduating class of 1935. In it I learned that father had "lettered" in varsity football in 1933-34 and 1934-35, had read the Class Will at a graduation related ceremony, that he had recently received a "Gold Star" award (along with other students though it is not clear exactly what the award was for), and, much to my surprise since I don't recall him ever mentioning it, he had been Student Council President during his senior year and as such "was influential in drawing up the council constitution". The senior class "spoof" for Kirt Hine reads: "Nickname: Prexy: Would Like To Be: Himself; Is: Dignified; Failing: Mount Rainier; Chief Interest: Student Body; Ambition: Physicist; Probable End: Soda Jerker".
Another publication sent by the archivist which was published in 1933 indicates in a photo and it's caption that Kirt played on the school tennis team in 1933 (though he apparently didn't "letter" in the sport). A part of this 1933 publication reads "The mystery surrounding the radio seems to urge many boys to delve into its secrets. This interest has led to the formation of a radio club. The boys have been experimenting with short wave sets and sending apparatus. Peter Mertens has put his telephone on a loud-speaker and has a thorough working knowledge of short wave radio as has Kirt Hine". An undated marketing/promotional pamphlet for the school from the period shows Kirt's parents, "Mr. and Mrs. Homer H. Hine", on a list of about 80 "present and former patrons of the Lakeside school". And a final unrelated but interesting note about the Lakeside School: In the early 1970's (many years after Kirt had graduated) two budding young entrepreneurs would graduate from Lakeside and go on to found Microsoft Corporation which today is the worlds largest and most successful software company. As I write this Bill Gates and Paul Allen are two of the world wealthiest individuals.
Other High School Years Activities Sailing:
He learned to sail on Seattle's Lake Washington and soon became an accomplished competitive racer in Star Class sailboats (length overall: about 23 feet). To the best of my knowledge the Hine family never owned a sailboat but Kirt had a number of friends that did and sailed regularly with them. He became experienced both as crew and captain of the two person Star Class boats. In 1935 Kirt and his best childhood friend, Charlie Ross, earned the honor of representing Seattle at the 1935 International Star Class Championships in Newport Harbor, California (south of Los Angeles). They apparently didn't place all that well but I bet they had a lot of fun.
When I was old enough to understand, father told of sailing to races in Canada in Star boats during Prohibition and returning to Seattle with a case or two of beer hidden under the floorboards in the bilge which he always said were for his father. From 1920 to 1933 the manufacture and consumption of alcoholic beverages was illegal in the United States but there was no such restriction in Canada. In 1933 Kirt would have turned 17 years old. A quick look at a map suggests the he probably raced in or near Victoria, BC on Vancouver Island as it is close enough to Seattle to be reached in a day or so in a small sailboat. Such a trip may have been Kirt's first taste of offshore sailing. I recall him telling of sailing in the region's San Juan Islands and this was likely his first experience spending nights in remote coves, something he would do much of in his later life.
Skiing: Kirt's competitive nature also manifested itself in the sport of skiing. I don't know exactly how he became interested in the sport nor when or where he first tried it but he apparently skied regularly during his high school years. Most of the stories I recall him telling of skiing in those days were about Mt. Rainier though I assume he must also have skied in the Cascade mountains. For most of the 1930's there were no ski lifts so skiers had to hike up a hill or mountain in order to ski down it and the sport was in it's infancy. I remember father telling of storing (with permission) food, clothing, and sleeping bags in the Paradise Lodge at about the 5000 foot elevation on Mt. Rainier during the fall when the road was still open. Then during the winter he and friends would hike in on skis for weekends and access the by then closed and otherwise unoccupied lodge by climbing in a 3rd story window (due to the depth of the snow). In initially researching 1930's Seattle area skiing I didn't come up with much information but later found this article online which describes the ski scene on Mt. Rainier in the 1930's. While not mentioned in the article, Kirt would have most certainly raced in the mentioned races through 1935 and known the skiers mentioned. After 1935 he was on the east coast at Yale establishing himself as a top ski racer. See: Ski Racing On Mt. Rainier
Radio
Communications: Logging:
Dating: Kirt's high school and college
sweetheart was Virginia Ann "Gina"
Bowden and, like Kirt, she was a sailor and a competitive skier.
I came to know her in later years by her married name of Gina Higman and
mention her here because, in spite of being married to others twice,
Kirt maintained a close friendship with Gina throughout his life and it
is rumored that Kirt and Gina may have had an affair while both were in
the Caribbean in the 1970's, late in Kirt's second marriage.
On June 6th 1935 Kirt graduated from the Lakeside School in Seattle having completed the "Scientific Course" and in the fall of that year entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where his major would be electrical engineering. In subsequent years Kirt would continue to visit and stay in contact with a number of friends from his childhood years in Seattle as best as he could even though he now started making the transition to living the rest of his life on the East Coast.
College at Yale A number of both Kirt's direct and indirect Hine and
Kirtland ancestors had attended Yale and it is clear that Homer and Rose
Hine
had started planning to send their son there when he was quite young.
A surviving letter written in June of 1929
by Cornelia W. Hall, a Kirtland descendent living in Warren, OH and
Kirt's 2nd cousin once removed, indicates her willingness to designate
Kirt as a recipient of the family's "Boardman" scholarships at Yale
(which had been set up by another Kirtland descendent) if
Kirt achieved the academic requirements to be admitted. She also
questions whether Kirt could achieve this goal by attending the Seattle
public schools. Several months later in the fall of 1929 Kirt's
parents enrolled him at Seattle's private Lakeside School at the age of
12 and 6 years before he would enter Yale in 1935.
Part of Kirt's Yale education would in fact be paid for by the Lucy Hall Boardman scholarship and the rest was paid for by his father's brother, Samuel Kirtland Hine (an Ohio resident and successful businessman) who Kirt always referred to as his "Uncle Kirt". In the late 1930's the country was in the midst of the Great Depression and Kirt's father could not afford to send his son to such a prestigious institution far away on the East Coast due, I suspect, to the fact that his sand and grave company wasn't doing all that well at the time. During his college years Kirt would show his appreciation to his Uncle Kirt and Cornelia Hall ("Cousin Nell") by visiting them regularly as he passed through Ohio on his way to or from Seattle during college breaks. Neither of his college financial benefactors had children and the relationships developed during this period were likely instrumental in Kirt being named as partial beneficiaries of each of their estates in later years (along with other of their relatives). For more detailed information on the Yale connection and the Boardman scholarships, click here:
I recall hearing over the years that an engineering degree at Yale while father was there was a 5 year program. (By the early 1960's Yale no longer offered an engineering degree.) On the other hand the evidence definitely shows that Kirt entered in the fall of 1935 and graduated in June of 1939. He thus managed to get through a difficult 5 year course curriculum in 4 years apparently, as I recall, by attended some summer classes.
Kirt signed up for the freshman football team but either didn't make the squad or decided to train for the ski season instead as his college football career was short lived. He remained on the team just long enough that in the last years of his life he was able to tell stories about his freshman football coach, a fellow named Jerry Ford (Gerald R. Ford) who in 1974 would become President of the United States when Richard Nixon suddenly resigned the position. A class mate who also went on to national prominence was Cyrus Vance who served in government in a number of capacities including as Secretary of State from 1977-1980 under President Jimmy Carter. During college and occasionally in later years father attended Yale football games as a spectator and sometimes took the entire family to New Haven to root for the Yale Bulldogs.
College Skiing Skiing became Kirt's primary athletic and winter extracurricular activity during his first 3 years at Yale. Throughout the years that I was growing up I was always aware that my father had been one of the "top 10" competitive skiers in the country during his college days. He used to jokingly say that this was back in the days when there were only 11 skiers in the country. Father regularly told us kids about his adventures as a ski racer. He excelled in what are today called the Alpine ski events of Downhill and Slalom as opposed to the Nordic events of Cross Country and Jumping. In the late 1930's skiing as a recreational and competitive sport was still in it's infancy though as I write this it has grown into a multi-billion dollar world-wide industry. Ski racing in those days was dominated by Dartmouth College in New Hampshire where most of the top ski racers of the day attended school but Kirt was able to hold his own against the "Dartmouth boys".
The acknowledged best skier of the period was a Dartmouth student named Dick Durrance. Father knew him and proudly told of beating him once in a race though my fading recollection of his telling of this suggests that it wasn't in one of the more important races. Father raced in the years before there were any significant ski lifts in the country (and talked of once using the generally acknowledged first ski lift in the country, a small rope tow in Vermont known as Suicide Six). So, like all the racers of the day, he had to climb up the ski trails and sometimes pack the snow before he could race down them. He became known to his college friends as "Keg-Leg" due to the muscles he developed in his legs. In part due to his size 13 feet and the resulting lack of availability of off-the-shelf boots in that size, I recall him telling of having to have custom ski boots made to insure a good fit. In those days ski boots were made of leather and were of a "double boot" design consisting of both an inner boot and an outer boot to provide better warmth and support, each of which had to be laced on each boot. Father used to talk of racing all over New England and he skied on all the now legendary trails of the period. He talked of the steep and sharp turns at the top of the Nose Dive trail on Mt. Mansfield near Stowe, Vermont (the only trail on the mountain then) and of skiing the Inferno race course through Tuckerman Ravine on New Hampshire's Mt. Washington including negotiating the infamous "Headwall", a near vertical drop down the face of the ravine. He estimated that he experienced speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour while "shushing the Headwall". (Records show that he never skied in the now famous formal Inferno race which was only held in 1932, 1933, and 1939 but he skied and raced the course informally in 1937 and 1938 and was present for the 1939 race as a spectator). In another story he told of having to enter the ski jumping competition in Lake Placid (New York) in order to fill the Yale team's entry requirement even though he had never ski jumped before. He was scared to death but managed to complete his jumps without injury. He talked of the fun of attending the Dartmouth Winter Carnival each winter with it's associate races and social activities. Father talked of skiing in more places, all in the North East, than I can remember and he usually represented Yale and was the best skier on it's team. In the late 1930's Yale's Outing Club and Ski Team were closely associated and Kirt served as Outing Club president in his junior year and vice-president in his senior year. In addition he was captain of the Ski Team in his Sophomore and Junior years. I recall him telling of Outing Club members scrounging up enough money to purchase an old, well worn station-wagon which was used to haul the ski team around New England to races. He never broke a bone skiing nor incurred any serious injury though he told of having a thumb regularly knocked out joint due to holding his ski poles so close to the ground that he'd catch a thumb in the snow on race courses.
As a top skier Kirt was regularly asked to test things by ski and related manufactures. He was one of the first to wear and test contact lenses. They were huge, covered the entire white area of the eye, and were held in place by sliding them under the upper and lower eyelids. He told of them being so painful to wear that he had to put them in right before a race and take them out as soon as he finished. The excitement and distraction of the race itself made them bearable and useful while on the race course. His old contact lenses were still among his effects when he passed away. Kirt also tested skis, which in the 1930's were make of wood with screwed on steel edges. He told of once carrying a brand new test pair of A&T skis, a top brand at the time, to the top of the Headwall in Tuckerman Ravine, putting them on in anticipation of skiing the steep slope and, when stomping them on the snow to make sure the bindings were properly secured to his boots, having the tip of one ski break off making his run down the mountain significantly harder than planned. In 2003 I spent some time trying to document father's ski legacy. I was able to find some records but not others as apparently not much was written down and saved in those early days of the sport. If there were any overall formal statistics kept to determine who the top skiers in any give year were back then, I couldn't find them so I suspect that Kirt's "top 10" designation was an informal one. I did however find some solid information about Kirt's ski record:
The New England Ski Museum (Franconia, NH) has some information on the early ski races on Mt. Washington (which I recall father telling me was only ski-able in the spring as it was prone to avalanches in the winter). They show Kirt finishing 17th of 25 racers in the first Giant Slalom race ever run in the United States on April 4th, 1937 in Tuckerman Ravine ("the 1937 US Eastern Slalom Championship and Franklin Edison Memorial Race").
Among Kirt's effects when he passed away were 3 undated medals which read "Lake Placid Club - College Week" and which show E. K. Hine placing 4th in the Slalom, 3rd in the Slalom, and 2nd in the Downhill respectively. In researching the medals I learned that the Lake Placid Club was a famous winter sports resort in Lake Placid, New York (now out of business) and that each winter around New Years it ran ski races for college teams which were considered some of the most prestigious ski events in the country at the time. In an effort to learn more I contacted the Lake Placid Public Library and they were able to find a great deal of information including race programs and results, Kirt's entry forms, Yale team forms and letters, etc. Kirt competed in the 1936/37 and 1937/38 College Weeks (his Sophomore and Junior years at Yale). The 4th place Slalom medal was from the 1936/37 event and in the 1937/38 event he earned metals for being the 2nd in the Downhill and 3rd in the Slalom. The 1936/37 race result sheets were not available but the ones for 1937/38 show that Dartmouth skiers won 1st and 3rd place in the Downhill (with Kirt placing 2nd) and in the Slalom the Dartmouth skiers won 1st, 2nd, and 5th places with another tied for Kirt at 3rd place. Among the many college teams represented, Dartmouth had the top finishers in most events with the lone exception of Kirt Hine representing the Yale Outing Club. Kirt clearly gave the top ski team in the country a run for its money (though Dick Durrance, a top skier of the day, did not participate that year for unknown reasons).
While Kirt ski raced during his freshman and sophomore years, the limited evidence available suggests that his best ski results occurred during his Junior year (1937/38). I recall him saying that he did not race during his Senior year (which is confirmed by the lack of evidence that he entered any races that season), preferring to apply himself more to his studies in anticipation of graduation and to the next phase of his life which would involve his next and final college extracurricular activity. While he didn't race during his last year at Yale he did continue to ski recreationally and was present for the spring 1939 Inferno race on Mt. Washington where he witnessed (and met) Tony Matt who established himself in the record books of the sport by shattering the old Inferno time record. I believe father said that Tony Matt cut the race course record time in half from about 12 minutes to 6 minutes for the run from the top of the mountain, over the Headwall, through Tuckerman Ravine, and down the trail through the woods to the bottom. Rumor was that Tony Matt downed a pint of whiskey before the race and that he never bothered to slow down (as all other racers did) before starting down the near vertical Headwall. (After college Kirt serioulsy considered trying out for the 1940 winter Olympics but these games, scheduled to take place in Japan, were cancelled in the run up prior to World War II.) A final observation. While Kirt was
skiing competitively on the East Coast his girl friend Gina Bowden
continued to ski race in Washington State and in 1938 won a major race
on Mount Rainer beating Gretchen Kunigk (Fraser) who 10 years later in
1948 became the first American (man or woman) to win a medal in Olympic
skiing by taking the gold medal in slalom and the silver in the combined
event. I strongly suspect, but have no direct evidence, that
Kirt knew both Gretchen Kunigk and her future husband Donald Fraser (who
skied in the 1936 Olympics) as both had learned to ski on Mount Rainier
at the same time Kirt did. I think it possible that Kirt may have
never known that he may have met and learned to ski with a future
Olympic mentalist since in 1948 media coverage of the Olympics was
sketchy and, while the results were probably published in the New York
Times, Kirt would have remembered Gretchen by her maiden name
Kunigk and not her married and likely published name Fraser. Flying By the late 1930's aviation was becoming a huge, glamorous, and high profile industry and Kirt wanted to become part of it. To complement his upcoming engineering degree he decided late in his Junior year that obtaining a private pilots license might be useful in obtaining a job in aviation (which turned out to be correct). According to his pilots log books his first flight as a student pilot took place in New Haven, Connecticut on May 11, 1938. It lasted 30 minutes and was flown in a "Kitty Hawk". Between May 11th and June 2nd he accumulated about 6 hours of flight time, mostly in a "Taylorcraft", during 11 flights with his instructor from New Haven.
The next log entry is on June 17th and was flown from Boeing Field in Seattle. Kirt obviously spent the summer of 1938 at home with his parents as all of his 85 log entries from then till August 28th were flown from the Seattle area and mostly from Boeing Field. He flew almost every day that summer in a number of aircraft types including the Aeronca K, Fleet Trainer, and Kinner Sportster. His first solo flight (flown without an instructor on board) took place from Boeing Field in an Aeronca K on June 19th after accumulating 9 hours and 15 minutes of flight time. His first "cross-country" flight (after about 19 hours of flight time) was on July 16th, was from Boeing Field, lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes, and concluded in Leavenworth, WA, a small town east of the Cascade Mountains where Kirt's sister then lived and would marry later in the year. The next entry on the same day records a 30 minute flight to nearby Cle Elum. Kirt's log book "remarks" entry after this flight reads "No gas at Cle Elum. Bumpy field." The next entry is a 15 minute flight to Easton, WA and the remarks read "Hiked to town for gas. Good field." The final log entry that day was his flight back to Seattle. It's not specifically spelled out in his log book but it's pretty clear that Kirt was awarded his private pilots license on August 16th, 1938. His total flight hours of exactly "40.0" (the minimum required to get the license) were tallied after a flight on the 13th and witnessed and authenticated by a notary public. After a 1-1/2 hour flight on August 16 in a Fleet Trainer from Boeing Field his remarks read "Private Pilots Test". The remarks for the next flight on the same day reads "Passenger, R. Hine". (This would have been his sister Ruth who must have been visiting in Seattle from her home in Leavenworth). Passengers were not allowed till you were properly licensed. On August 22 a flight entry reads "Family, mom & Ruth" implying that they were his passengers on that flight. Two days later (8/24) the entry reads "Passenger, V. A. Bowden". This was his high school sweetheart, the future Gina Higman. Kirt continued to fly in Seattle till August 28 and then the log entries starting on September 6th show that he was again flying out of New Haven, Connecticut. He continued to fly regularly throughout his Senior year at Yale and by July of 1939 when he started working for Curtiss-Wright Corporation he had accumulated about 81 hours of total flight time. Dating and Friendships
I don't believe that Kirt dated much while he was in college and the evidence I have suggests that his girl friend continued to be his high school sweetheart Gina Bowden who remained in Seattle. While he was social and outgoing by nature I don't recall ever hearing about any college dating relationships of significance during this period (except for Gina) and have run into only a little unspecific photographic evidence that he may have dated at all during this period. My mother, long after my parents had divorced and father had passed away, made the comment that, in spite of her knowing many of the men in father's Yale social circles and often hearing about him while dating other Yale students, she had never met him till several years after his graduation. She indicated that Kirt Hine was always gone on weekends either skiing or flying while others were socializing. The evidence I have that Kirt's relationship with Gina Bowden continued throughout his college years includes the fact that they frequently exchanged letters and she was among the first passengers Kirt took flying after he received his pilots license in the summer of 1938. A portrait of Gina appears on a shelf in the background of a photograph of Kirt's Yale bedroom, probably taking in his junior or senior year. My mother also once mentioned that father had once had a girlfriend nick-named "Blondie" and his pilots log book shows that he took up a passenger by that name in Seattle in December of 1938. This is all I know about Blondie but perhaps she caused the end of father's relationship with Gina Bowden. However the Seattle relationships worked out, Kirt would soon be permanently establishing his life on the East Coast, far from his childhood home in Seattle. The long distance from New Haven to Seattle made it financially and time wise impractical for Kirt to return home to visit his sister and parents regularly during his college years. Spending several days on a train each direction was the preferred method of long distance cross country travel in the 1930's and Kirt would usually take the "Empire Builder", a cross country train which passed through some of the most majestic scenery the country had to offer, on the Chicago/Seattle part of the long trip. Airline travel was in it's infancy and was extremely expensive. I have no record of whether Kirt returned to Seattle for Christmas break in 1935 (his freshman year) but the ski records from the Lake Placid Public Library suggest that Kirt did not go home for the Christmas break in 1936 or 1937 as he was ski racing there those years. He did, however, go home for the holidays via airline in 1938 to attend his sister's December 28th wedding. There is evidence that he visited home each summer while attending Yale though it is not clear how much time he spent there in 1936 and 1937. In 1936 he spent the month of June at Yale "Engineering Camp" and then visited home. In June of 1937 he took a train to visit his Ohio relatives and then picked up a Buick automobile in or near Detroit (which his father had ordered) and drove it to Seattle for use as the Hine family car. His pilot's log books clearly shows that he spent the entire summer of 1938 in Seattle. While Kirt's visits to his childhood home in the Pacific Northwest were infrequent during his Yale years, surviving letters which he wrote home (see below) indicate that he remained close to his parents and sister and that they corresponded regularly.
Father made many lifelong friends growing up in Seattle and during his 4 years at Yale. Perhaps the best was William R. McKelvy ("Bill") who father met as a freshman at Yale. There is a story behind their meeting and friendship which I heard from father many years ago and which my mother reminded me of long after father's death. Bill McKelvy's father was a business partner of one of Kirt's uncles, Alfred P. Hine, in the McKelvy-Hine Company, a Pittsburgh, PA area engineering and heavy construction company. Kirt, having grown up on the west coast, had never met or heard of the McKelvy's in 1935 as he headed off to Yale. On his way east in the fall of 1935 he stopped in Ohio to visit his "Uncle Kirt", Samuel Kirtland Hine, who paid for a chunk of Kirt's college education. Uncle Kirt apparently told him in no uncertain terms something to the effect of "the son of your uncle Alfred's business partner is also entering Yale this fall. That kid is nothing but trouble so be sure to stay away from him". Kirt and Bill met early in their freshman year, I believe in an engineering class, and instantly became best friends. They studied together, skied together (though I don't think Bill was a competitive racer), took flying lessons together, graduated together, both went to work for the same company where they worked together from 1939 till about 1947, and they became partners in 1945 in the Vernon Ski Tow ski area venture which operated on weekend in Northern New Jersey. Bill would move on to work for another company but their friendship lasted as long both lived and in later years they sailed together and their families visited each other regularly. Kirt and Bill's son's even attended the same summer camp in New Hampshire at the same time. Post College Employment
I have no idea how many jobs Kirt applied for during his Senior year nor how many offered him work but on May 4th, 1939 he received a letter from the Curtiss-Wright Corporation's Propeller Division in New Jersey offering him an engineering job at a starting salary of $125 per month which he immediately accepted. Curtiss-Wright was a large and well known aviation company of the day involved in defense and civilian aviation work and, through mergers, the descendent of companies founded by early aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers and Glenn Curtiss. Kirt and his future boss (of many years) agreed that he would report for work on Monday morning July 17, 1939.
Kirt graduated from Yale on June 20, 1939 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and headed to Seattle to spend several weeks with his parents before reporting to work in northern New Jersey in mid July.
Miscellaneous Early Years Observations
Through his high school years Kirt and his family apparently did not travel widely outside of the Pacific Northwest. I've only run into evidence that he left the area twice before heading east to Yale in the fall of 1935. There are clearly labeled photos taken in 1933 showing the entire Seattle Hine family visiting relatives in Ohio and a brief mention in the social pages of a fall 1933 Seattle newspaper indicates that the Hine family had spent some time at the Lazy SV Ranch (apparently a guest ranch) near Sheridan, WY on the "way home from a trip to Chicago to see the Worlds Fair" . Then in the summer of 1935 Kirt ventured south to Newport Harbor in California for the Star Class sailboat championships.
Kirt came to know his father's Ohio relatives well starting when he was quite young and would stay in contact with his paternal uncles, aunt, and cousins throughout his and their lives. (Oddly though, he never mentioned ever knowing his mother's relatives who lived much closer in Idaho.) There is photographic evidence that Kirt's uncle, Samuel Kirtland Hine ("Uncle Kirt"), and aunt, Ellen Louise Hine ("Aunt Nell") visited the Hines in Seattle when Kirt was perhaps 2 years old. There are also surviving photos of Uncle Kirt and Aunt Nell visiting, perhaps separately, at least two or three other times over Kirt's Seattle years and into the late 1930's. If he hadn't known them already, Kirt would come to know his other two uncles and all his 1st cousins on the family's trip to Ohio in 1933. Then during Kirt's Yale years he visited all his Ohio relatives frequently as he passed through Ohio on the way to and from home. Kirt's sister Ruth has mentioned having a dog when she and Kirt were growing up but Kirt never mentioned in later years having pets as he grew up suggesting that pets were perhaps not a major part of his life in his childhood years. In later life Kirt would like and have dogs thought he generally disliked cats.
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