Ruby Bryant’s Plane crash notes and diary
A diary provides the most emotional information from a source in historical narrative nonfiction. For Hang on and Fly, I was able to absorb information from Ruby Jewel Bryant's diary and notes that she had written on a calendar.
The details were remarkable.
The pictures here show Ruby Bryant's notes that she wrote in her diary and on a wall calendar from 1951-52. She details her family events and personal and medical health issues while performing the role of heroine during the crash of Flight 44-2. Her diary is much longer and more detailed than the calendar notes.
Ruby was also a victim. She was a farm woman caring for her family in a rural and remote region of Western New York State in the 1940s - early '50s. Ruby probably knew or feared that she had breast cancer when she sprang into action as plane crash survivor George Albert suddenly showed up at her farmhouse door.
She wrote, “Our radio blacked out just before Christmas so I didn’t know about the missing plane as there’s no papers on Sunday and it was Monday afternoon. He (George Albert) said, ‘there’s been a wreck and I’d like to use your phone. You do have a phone, don’t you?’
The Bryants had a telephone. It was a party line shared by six homes and a hunting camp that belonged to my uncle’s family, the Meyers from nearby Randolph, New York.
Ruby wrote, “I didn’t smell any alcohol so had decided he was OK. Thought there was a car wreck.” Ruby got George into her farmhouse to sit down while her son, Rodney Bryant, got on the telephone to call an Operator. Ruby asked George “if anyone was hurt and how far up the road it was to the wreck. He said, ‘I’ve got to get help to those people. It’s awful and it’s about 2 miles up the road (Sawmill Run Road) and 2 more back in the woods, maybe.’ Then he said, ‘there was about 20 dead and 14 injured.’ I knew it couldn’t be a car wreck.”
Within moments George got on the telephone and Ruby heard him describe the airplane crash and the survivor’s scene to police in Salamanca, New York. When the call for help was completed, George turned again to Ruby and Rodney Bryant and explained how his mother was dead in the crash and that a “baby” also died, in the arms of a stewardess. Ruby could hardly believe what she was hearing. Rodney immediately began dressing in a warm coat and boots with plans to hike up the mountain to help. Their lives were rapidly changing and would soon be overcome by the onslaught of rescuers, police, medical crews, the press, morticians, and the public, all eager for news about the plane crash.
Ruby's diary and notes were passed down through her family for many years and then provided to me by her children to write Hang on and Fly. It takes a lot of courage and trust to give someone a diary. I appreciate the Bryant family trusting me with their mother's most private recollections.
Ruby and Otis Bryant. Bryant family photo.
When people send me comments about the story in Hang on and Fly, they are most sympathetic with Ruby; then George; then Pearl.
I think it's because they easily identify with Ruby's simple but personal comments in her diary.
Ruby was a remarkably brave woman. And, she saved lives while knowing that hers was about to end.