HEROES: Miss Elder Abroad

Lisbon. Through a cordon of vociferous police a band of students sprang. Shouting greetings they swung cloaks off their shoulders and spread them for the feet of Miss Ruth Elder. Touched, she thanked them; excited and faintly afraid of the pushing Portugese she clung to the arm of Fred Morris Dearing, American Minister to Portugal. Lisbon revelled. As she stepped to the mainland of Europe (14 days almost to the hour after taking off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, with pilot George W. Haldeman for a transatlantic flight which ended when they were hoisted from the ocean off the Azores) Miss Elder limped slightly. She dismissed it, saying she had sprained an ankle en voyage from the Azores.

Madrid. American Ambassador Ogden Hammond met Miss Elder and Pilot Haldeman at Getafe Airfield. Someone filled her arms with flowers. They lunched with the Royal Spanish Air Club; were visited at the Embassy by General Primo De Rivera, Dictator Premier; left by train for Bayonne, France, whence they would fly to Paris.

Paris. “Don’t let me fall. “Don’t let me fall.” Gendarmes did not let her fall. Thus she was carried through the crush at Le Bourget field to face the official welcomers. Rushed to the Union Interallied for the first reception; still clad in knickerbockers; her only baggage a lipstick; she made her first official speech; thanks; 26 words.

While she was visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the mother of Charles Nungesser, and dressmakers (her second day in Paris), the native press speculated about heart interest. Interviewed with Mr. Haldeman, she was asked why she did not bring her husband with her. Said she: “Because he weighs too much gasoline.”