Foil: 37 Panel: 3 Column: 1 Line: 26

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Leader

Honored by:

Clarice Eileen Severson (Clare E. “Knoll” Plank) was born November 26, 1917, in Cumberland, Wisconsin, to Leo & Hazel Severson.
Clare answered an advertisement in the Milwaukee Paper in January, 1943 announcing that United Airlines was hiring stewardesses. She applied along with some 200 other lovely ladies and she was one of the four that were hired. Clare took all the pre-employment exams, the company physical, and started Stewardess School in Chicago in March of 1943. After six weeks of training Clare started flying stewardess on the Douglas DC-3s from Chicago to New York with stops at Cleveland and other cities en route. Clare lived at an apartment house on Lake Michigan, Chicago, with many other stewardesses and some single co-pilots. She had many interesting experiences in the early days of commercial aviation. She met and married Lyle Knoll while flying and that ended her career; as one of the early requirements was you could not be married and continue flying as a stewardess.
Clare has one son, Doug, an attorney in Los Angeles, and is now married to a retired United Pilot, W. Jay Plank. She lives in Hillsborough, CA and enjoys occasional flights, always wanting a window seat to see the countryside that she first saw through the windows of the DC-3 at much lower latitudes. Clare and Jay have taken the Concorde to Europe and enjoyed the 3 hours 25 minutes crossing of the Atlantic to Heathrow. They have visited the Udvar-Hazy-Smithsonian Museum a number of times and are always in awe of the fantastic collection of airplanes and spacecraft.