GROUNDED BY LOVE EX-STEWARDESS BECAME JET-AGE ADVOCATE.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

There's no telling how long Ethel Pattison would have flown the friendly skies if she hadn't married the minister's son and got herself grounded in 1953.

``That's just the way it was for stewardesses back then,'' the historian of Los Angeles International Airport said Wednesday as she got ready for the golden anniversary party her co- workers were throwing for her.

``We knew going in, the airlines wanted only single women of certain looks and proportions, who had the ability to get along with everyone and make the passengers comfortable.

``You couldn't have both - the job and husband. I hated losing that job, but I loved my husband more.''

Ethel met Sydney Pattison one Sunday morning in 1951, in a Presbyterian church in Cheyenne, Wyo., where she was undergoing stewardess training for United Airlines.

``He was sitting in a pew with his mother listening to his father give a sermon. He looked at me, I looked at him and that was it.''

Two years later, Sydney graduated from dental school and proposed. They'd been married 52 years when Sydney died last year.

Maybe it was fate or just pure luck, Ethel said, but there's no way her life in the sky would have been as full and interesting as her life on the ground turned out to be.

It was 1956, and she was among eight young women hired as tour guides to educate the public and business groups on the coming jet age and the need for a bigger, more modern airport for Los Angeles.

She was there when Russian Premier Nikita Khruschev arrived in Los Angeles at the height of the Cold War, and when the Beatles arrived to a screaming horde of young girls rushing their plane.

And she's still here 50 years later, at age 80, giving tours as the historian of the airport's Flight Path Learning Center-Museum.

``Ethel is an inspiration to everyone who works here,'' said Lydia Kennard, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, which operates LAX.

``She had a pivotal role in the development of the tour program, which is credited with winning approval for the city of Los Angeles bond measure in 1956 to build the jet age airport after two previous bond measures had been defeated.''

Ethel's the last of the original eight tour guides, and LAWA shut down tours of the airport after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Her tours now are strictly of the airport museum, where people wander in and stay for hours.

``The real miracle of this place after 50 years is the airlines moving 60 million travelers a year in and out of LAX so well,'' she said. ``It's an incredible place to work.''

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

--The Flight Patch Learning Center-Museum is at 6661 W. Imperial Highway, Los Angeles. Call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1) Ethel Pattison, historian at LAX's Flight Path Center-Museum, shows some of the uniforms worn by flight attendants in the past.

(2) In this 1960s photo, a young Ethel Pattison, second from bottom, poses with other tour guides at LAX, where she was honored Wednesday for 50 years of service.

Tom Mendoza/Staff Photographer

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)