Partridge

Farmer S. J. Letendre of Mendota, Minn., paused by his barn one afternoon last week to observe the erratic flight of an airplane coming along low over the fields from the windy northwest. It was swerving and teetering as if its courage were buffeted away. Two small pieces fell from it. It twirled reluctantly, then dropped like a shot bird. Farmer Letendre extricated from the wreck the remains of Pilot Elmer Lee Partridge. Partridge had just left Minneapolis on the inaugural southbound trip of an air mail service between there and Chicago.* Three of the five other pilots flying the new route that day were blown astray. Partridge is believed to have had no parachute. Colonel Charles M. Dickinson, president of the Aero Club of Illinois, the body that has the Government contract for the new route, was reported as having blamed Partridge's death on "a law just passed by Congress levying fines on pilots late with their mail." Col. Dickinson was either misquoted or mistaken. No such law exists.