WATCH: Original Delta Airlines Flight Attendant Dies at 103
The friendly skies just got a little less friendly.
Sybil Peacock Harmon, one of Delta Air Lines’ very first flight attendants, has died at the age of 103, the Atlanta Journal Constitution confirms.
Harmon was born in Minden, Louisiana, on July 9, 1916. She was a 24-year-old nursing school graduate when she was hired as one of the Atlanta-based airline’s first stewardesses (as they were known at the time) in 1940. Back then, stewardesses were required to be registered nurses.
“Flying was special because I was going places,” Harmon said at her 102nd birthday party thrown by Delta last year. “When I was 9, I told everyone, ‘I’m going to go all over the world.’ And I did.”
CEO Ed Bastian even recorded a special birthday message thanking her “for all you did to put Delta on the map.”
Harmon flew mainly on the 21-seat DC-3, before leaving Delta to join the military in 1943. She was discharged May 1946 and went on to work as an obstetrical nurse and supervisor at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas.
“You felt like a celebrity,” she recalled of the early days of aviation. “People would come out to the airport with their children and they would say, ‘Look, that’s the stewardess!’ They even asked for our autographs.”
“We’re saddened to learn of Sybil Peacock Harmon’s passing,” Delta said in a news release. “Sybil was a beloved member of the Delta family who left her mark as a member of our first class of flight attendants. We will cherish her memory and wish her loved ones well in this difficult time.”
Rest in peace, Sybil.
