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Ambition and a Tragedy at Sea
Ambition and a Tragedy at Sea
By John T. Toler
While the legend of pioneering pilot Charles Lindberg is well known, a woman who once lived in Warrenton was a serious contender to be the first “Lady Lindy” in 1927.
Frances Wilson Grayson (1890-1927) was the wife of Warrenton businessman John Brady Grayson (1871-1942), the son of George Washington Grayson (1835-1919) and Mary Elizabeth Brady Grayson (1845-1923).
John B. Grayson established Grayson’s Department Store in Warrenton in the late 1890s. In addition to his retail business and real estate investments, he served as Warrenton’s postmaster from 1907-1914 and 1923-1934.
The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew J. Wilson, Frances was born in Cherokee Village, Arkansas. The family later moved to Muncie, Ind., where her father owned and operated a grocery store.
After graduating from high school, Frances attended the Chicago Musical College. She later enrolled at Swarthmore College, where she studied recitation and dramatic arts and also met John Grayson, who was almost 20 years her senior. They married in September, 1914.
Prominent in the community, John was a deacon and treasurer of the Warrenton Baptist Church and chairman of the 8th District Republican Committee. He also was a member of the Mt. Carmel Lodge, A.F. & A.M., and served several years as town treasurer.
Frances was likewise involved in the community, and was a member of the Warrenton Chapter of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia, advocating for women’s right to vote.
Both John and Frances were involved in several real estate investments in town, sometimes partnering with Mr. and Mrs. Ford Anderson. In 1922, they purchased the store building on Main Street that John had rented for several years from the estate of the late Joseph A. Jeffries. They divorced in 1923, and Frances moved to New York City, where she worked as a writer for a newspaper before starting a career in real estate.
She also became interested in aviation, and after Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight in May, 1927, she was determined to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.
Knowing that other women had similar ambitions, Frances quickly set about finding backers for her flight. She received financial support from Mrs. Aage Ancker, the wealthy daughter of Pittsburgh steel manufacturer Charles H. Sang.
Looking for quick aircraft delivery, she put a deposit on a new Sikorsky S-36 twin-engine amphibious aircraft, one of six then under construction at the Sikorsky Manufacturing Company in Roosevelt, N.Y. Able to take off and land on water, the S-36 seemed the ideal choice for a trans-Atlantic flight. Frances christened the new airplane, registration NX 1282, “The Dawn.”
On Oct. 11, 1927, she and her crew attempted to take off from Old Orchard Beach, Maine, but had to turn back because of deteriorating weather and mechanical problems.
Another attempt was made on Oct. 17, 1927. With pilot Wilmer Stultz at the controls, “The Dawn” left Orchard Beach again, this time making it out about 500 miles before thickening weather forced them to return. A third attempt also was aborted shortly after take-off.
Frances prepared for another attempt, this time with a new crew consisting of pilot Lt. Oskar Omdal, navigator Brice Goldsborough, and Frank Koehler, an expert on Wright engines who was to stay on board until “The Dawn” reached the jumping-off point at Harbor Grace, Newfoundland.
Late in the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 23, 1927, a crowd gathered at Roosevelt Field on Long Island, N.Y. to witness the historic take-off.
“The Dawn” lifted off at 5:07 p.m. on the first leg of the trip, en route to Harbour Grace, where it would be re-fueled. The last confirmed sighting of “The Dawn” was at 7:10 p.m. off Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Later that evening, the crew of a schooner fighting a strong gale in the dark about 20 miles off Nauset Beach claimed to have heard the roar of aircraft engines nearby, followed by a splash. After about five minutes, the noise stopped.
When “The Dawn” did not arrive at Harbour Grace by the next morning, it was clear something had gone wrong. Because the plane carried enough fuel to stay in the air for 20 hours, it was assumed that after that much time, “The Dawn” was on the water somewhere off the coast.
Radio operators at a Canadian government radio station on Sable Island reported they had heard a broken radio transmission using “The Dawn’s” code prefix, asking for navigational bearings before stating, “Something wrong here,” followed by “… plane down.”
Authorities were optimistic the crew had successfully landed on open water, and had made it to one of the many coves and inlets along the way. Search planes covered the route from New York to Harbour Grace, but found nothing.
All possible sightings were investigated, and the search expanded all the way to the coastal waters around Newfoundland. But no trace of the missing plane or its crew was ever found. After several days without a break, the search was suspended.
In later years, speculation arose the aircraft went down much further out in the Atlantic than originally believed.
This theory was supported when a bottle with a message inside washed up on the shore of Salem Harbor, Mass. in January, 1929. The note read, “1928. We are freezing. Gas leaked and we are drifting off Grand Banks. Grayson.” Was it real, or a hoax? It’s unlikely anyone will ever know.
The late Mrs. Douglas Saunders of Warrenton was the daughter of T. Keller Grayson and niece of John B. Grayson. Born at the Grayson home place in New Baltimore in 1922, she never knew Frances Wilson Grayson, but has fond memories of John B. Grayson, who she knew as “Uncle Johnny.”
Mrs. Saunders remembers hearing about the disappearance of Uncle Johnny’s former wife, and noted that while he was “…always quite popular with the ladies,” he never remarried.
“He had no children of his own, so my sister Delia and I were very special to him,” recalled Mrs. Saunders. “He was like our second father.”
John B. Grayson was a loyal Republican. “I remember seeing sheet music on his piano with a song about Alf Landon (the 1936 Republican Party presidential candidate),” recalled Mrs. Saunders. “And he had all the campaign buttons for the Republican candidates he supported.”
In his later years, John B. Grayson turned over management of the Grayson Department Store to his nephew, George Grayson (1910-1967). When John’s health failed, he lived with T. Keller Grayson at his home in New Baltimore until his death in 1942.
Southern Department Stores of Richmond acquired Grayson’s Department Store in 1945, and in 1958, the Grayson building on Main Street sold to Lerner Bros., and leased back. When the lease expired in 1965, Grayson’s moved out to the Northern Virginia Shopping Center. It later became Southern Department Store, and finally Peebles Department Store.
Today, the former Grayson’s/Southern/Peebles building is the home of Galaxy Strikes Bowling Center.
