Talk:Pancho Barnes

Quotations

 * "We had more fun in a week than most of the weenies in the world have in a lifetime." (referring to the times she and her fellow aviators had at her fly-in ranch)
 * "Don't even try to be like someone else, because we've seen it already!"
 * "When you have a choice, choose happy!"

These are moved here until verified.

N.B. neither the second or third quotes appearing above appear in Lauren Kessler's excellent biography of Barnes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.105.36.178 (talk) 05:34, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

The top quote can be found in "Yeager" by Chuck Yeager and Leo Janos (1985, Bantam) on page 181. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.67.6.14 (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Dean Banks
Corrected Pancho Barne's cousin's name to Dean Banks (full name Francis Howard Dean Banks Jr.) from Dean Barnes. 24.18.148.71 00:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hub Hunt, growing up the son of Pasadena architect Myron Hunt at 200 North Grand Avenue, Pasadena, told me in the Huntington Hospital a day before his death about his first girlfriend being married off to a preacher's son and that it didn't work out, she was wild. Hub spoke of watching the breakers in Long beach, not possible with the smog that day, and not likely from San Marino that straddles Huntington drive: a major 'Red Line' track that Huntington would never have been built on elevated land (unlike Pancho's grandfather's railroad). Hub was quite the ladies man, working with my father making 'industrial' promotional films before and after WWII, competing for my mother, and i worked with Hub on film animation in the late 1970's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:4F08:7100:C916:5882:3864:F700 (talk) 08:05, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Birthplace
I just saw a documentary stating that the Lowe family lived in San Marino, not Pasadena. 208.252.219.2 (talk) 18:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Some families move from place to place, so they may have lived in both places. San Marino is very close to Pasadena. What was the documentary?   Will Beback    talk    19:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Pancho Barnes lived in Fremont Valley in Cantil, which is quite desolate country. Cantil is on the southwest side of Koehn Lake. It is accessed by Neuralia Road from California City and by Munsey Road, which runs on the south side of the lake. There are no facilities nor amenities of any kind in the entire area (except at the Jawbone Canyon Park, far to the west). People traveling to the end of Munsey Road should have a cell phone.

If not contrary to Homeland Defense interests and policy, it would be nice to have a marker indicating the BLMT facility in the area, and an historical marker noting the location of the McKendry Barnes strip in the Gypsy Springs area at Cantil. Gary Armstrong, stepson of E.S. "Mac" Mckendry gave me some information on Pancho Barnes.

This note is about an era of giants that once flew in America’s skies. Mac McKendry was the pilot of the USAF plane assigned to Gen. Jimmy Doolittle for personal official travel. For a variety of reasons I have hesitated to elaborate on my notes about Pancho Barnes, her exploits and dreams—that ended sadly and catastrophically in the heart attack at Boron that ended the suffering she endured as sequel to sequentially bilateral breast cancer.

Florence Leontine Lowe-Barnes was a bigger than life character. She was a one-of-kind personality, as were many of her associates in the development of America’s aviation industry. When you see she was personal friend to Howard Hughes, Jimmy Doolittle and Chuck Yeager, you catch a glimmer of her star magnitude in flying’s firmament, that flashed at Oro Verde, Cantil, Jawbone Canyon and Gypsy Springs of the Mojave Desert.

Florence Lowe went from fabulous southern California inherited wealth to destitute borax-dusted poverty, in ill-managed efforts to create a Las Vegas of aviation in the Mojave Desert, first at Oro Verde, southwest of Edwards Air Force Base. She dreamed of fly-in water sports luxury resorts, in a land that did not geologically and climatically support them. Lauren Kessler’s book The Happy Bottom Riding Club—The Life And Times Of Pancho Barnes ((c) 2000) reveals other powerful natural forces that worked against her.

Pancho had that rare gift the military calls leadership that causes men (and women) to be more than they ever wanted to be. The gift she had is called charisma by people in show business. Whatever it was, it gathered folks around her in displays of outrageous genius and wild libido. When she was born a scary geni was let out of its bottle. Pancho Barnes married a society preacher man, gave birth to a child, and ascended into heaven.

Time has given a golden aura to the gargantuan life of Pancho Barnes that was tarnished somewhat in her own time. DeLorme cartographers have an irritating tendency to rewrite the history in our maps to make them non-ethnic and impersonal. The Gypsite shown on page 118 of DeLorme California Detailed Topographical Maps is the Gypsy Springs site of the Florence Leontine Lowe-McKendry home and airstrip.

The Gypsy Springs Ranch of Mac McKendry and Pancho Barnes was all that hard work and inspired thinking could make it. But the money to build the dream never came. The water was brine, the sun was hellish hot, and the Air Force was not the U.S. Army Air Corps that made Oro Verde work. I came of age in The Tea House of the August Moon on Okinawa, and saw the cultural change in the military coming.

I have ground reconned this area, insofar as I have access. I have not imposed on the kindness of the McKendry family Armstrong heirs of Pasadena and Cantil. There are some stories too big to be told. Some such are too sad for human hearts to hold. Such a story is that of Pancho Barnes, who was a bona fide hero of aviation, who stood up for the equality of women in endeavors long considered male-only activities.

The Home of Pancho Barnes and E.S. “Mac” McKendry was in Fremont Valley between Cantil and Lake Koehn, in a spring-fed but salty oasis, that could not support alfalfa fields and expensive race horses. Pancho dreamed of an aviation resort there, and Mac McKendry graded an airstrip to accommodate big party planes—but they didn’t come.

The desert and destiny finally beat Pancho Barnes at Boron. Thoroughbred race horses, cows, dogs and hogs died with Pancho’s dreams at Gypsy Springs. There are other stories to be told of Gypsy Springs, but I could not do justice to them.71.243.210.149 (talk) 16:46, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Legacy
This section of the article appears to contain uncorroborated information relative to Ted Tate's authorship of the book "The Lady Who Tamed Pegasus". Tate's copyright over the book and the content that appears in it, was never disputed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.170.201.161 (talk) 19:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Teaching World War II pilots
I've seen references, including elsewhere in Wikipedia, to Barnes teaching pilots for the military for World War II. This article completely skips over that entire timeframe. Anyone who has the time and resources, please look into this! Critterkeeper (talk) 14:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)