Old Missoula

Ruth Marie Hladik – Missoula’s First Female Pilot

Missoula’s first female pilot, Ruth Marie Hladik, got her introduction to flying early in 1928 from Missoula’s Bob Johnson. She was hooked. While growing up in Missoula, she briefly attended school at the University of Montana, then later moved to Butte after marrying Frank Nelson, who worked there. She began taking flying lessons from A. W. Stephenson, a WW 1 pilot who had started a flying school in Butte. Ruth, in fact, became the bookkeeper – manager of Steve’s Butte Flying school after her 1st husband, Frank, suddenly passed away early in 1928.

She then continued her own instruction to obtain a transport license and by early 1929 had already logged over 200 flights, with 25 of them solo’s. Only Esther Vance of Great Falls would beat her to obtaining a commercial license in Montana. By 1930 Ruth obtained her commercial pilot’s license and became the first woman to fly “solo” from 3 different airports – Missoula, Butte, and Salt Lake. While she took training from several instructors, she credited Bob Johnson as the most effective instructor. After living in Salt Lake for a short time she returned to Missoula in 1932 and passed her tests for her transport license. It allowed her to fly cargo as well as passengers. She was believed to be one of only two women in the northwest to hold that license in 1932.

She was involved in a near tragic accident in Missoula in October of 1931. Flying with R. J. “Dick” Hale of Missoula as the pilot, they crashed a plane on Vine Street in Missoula, just across the street from where Hale’s parents lived. Both Hale and Ruth were licensed pilots at the time, but it didn’t prevent them from falling out of the sky after flying over Mount Jumbo. After stalling, their plane hit a fruit tree and then stopped without even flipping over. Each of the lucky occupants walked away unhurt, but the plane was a total wreck. Hale credited Ruth, saying “She is a flyer and she wasn’t overcome by hysteria, although it is no pleasant feeling to drop thousand feet and not know what is going to happen when you hit.”

Hale field in Missoula was named for this pilot in 1935. He was a county surveyor at the time. The plane also had an interesting history in that it had previously been used by Colonel Lindberg when he learned to fly. The plane was later sold to Lon Brennan of Missoula who subsequently sold it to Romie Deschamps. An article in The Missoulian newspaper in 1932 stated that there were only 5 locally owned planes in Missoula at that time. Bob Johnson started his flying career after taking flying lessons from Lon Brennan in 1924. In 1928 Johnson was the only licensed pilot in Missoula. He had started his flying school the previous year.

Ruth Marie Nelson married Robert C. Dean in Hamilton, Mt. in 1933. He was a career Army officer who served at Fort Missoula as an administrator of the Fort Missoula CCC program. He resigned from the Army in 1939 and reentered in 1941, serving in Africa, Sicily, Italy and France. He was discharged in 1946 as a full colonel. A Reserve officer, Dean was reactivated to the Army in 1946 to General Mark Clark’s staff in San Francisco.

During much of that time Ruth stayed in Missoula with her parents, Carrie and John Hladik. They had resided in Missoula since about 1910 and had two children, Ruth and Clara. They operated the Brooks Street Grocery and later the Hladik Grocery on South Ave. West, and another Hladik Grocery on Kensington Ave.

There is no record available regarding Ruth’s flying career after marrying Robert Dean. They moved to Helena, Mt. shortly after WW 2 and resided there until Robert’s death in 1967. Ruth was involved in several local charitable organizations. She was elected president of St. Peter Hospital Association in Helena in 1951.

Following Robert Dean’s death, she returned to Missoula and managed an apartment complex which she owned.

Ruth married another career Army officer, Lt. Colonel Kenneth W. Gillespie, in 1977. Gillespie was also involved in the CCC at Ft. Missoula at one time and was an officer in the Army in WW 2. He served in occupied Japan, Korea, and served 3 tours at the Pentagon in Wash. D. C. They lived in Utah where she died in 1986.

Her Missoulian obituary does not mention her pilot history. She is buried in Missoula City Cemetery.

Ruth Marie Hladik (Nelson, Dean, Gillespie) was inducted into the Missoula Museum of Mountain Flying in 1995.