The "A Cousin Named Emory C. Malick" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Day back in 2004 when a woman by the name of Mary Groce sat down with her cousin to sort through old family photographs.  Something we all do from time to time, but not with the same results that Mary experienced that day 16 yers ago.  

Mr. Emory C. Malick

She and her cousin made the most unusual discovery.  Seems that Mary's great-uncle was famous and she didn't know about it.  She also discovered that her great-uncle was black and she is white.  Her great-uncle's name was Emory C. Malick and he was the first African American licensed pilot in history.  Wow, what a discovery.  And...what a pleasant discovery for Mary.  Or...was it?   

His original license.

I found out about Mr. Malick while reading an article in my Lancaster Newspaper written by Mary Ellen Wright.  She told the basics of the story and I began to search for more information to share with you.  Emory studied at the San Diego aviation school of Glenn Curtiss who was one of the founders of the United States aviation industry.  In 1912 he received his pilot's certification.  But, what made his story more interesting to me was the fact that he spent a short period of his life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania around 1910 when he was 28 years old.  At that time he was the house carpenter at the Webber Hotel on East King Street in downtown Lancaster and does appear in the 1910 U.S. Census list as a boarder at the hotel.  Emory also helped build the Pennsylvania Capitol building in Harrisburg as well as work on the woodworking of the dining and sleeper cars for the Pennsylvania Railroad.  The article in the Lancaster Newspaper said that Mr. Malick and Harrisburg pilot James McCalley did exhibition flights over Lancaster's Rocky Springs Park in 1912, but I searched the Lancaster newspaper archives and could not find Mr. Malick as part of that exhibition.   When Mary began her study about her relative, she found official records saying that the members of her family were all white, but some of her siblings did have darker skin that others.  It led to her belief that Malick's family was of mixed race, but were light-skinned enough to pass as white.  Seems that no one in her family wanted to talk about their relatives.  It was only after research and consultations with a genealogist in State College, PA that she sent information about her great-uncle to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum.  All this exposure for her relative led to quite a bit of controversy.  Mary is now in the midst of a fellowship with the Air & Space Museum which will be completed in the near future after everything gets back to normal.  Mary did find information telling of her relative's interest in flying from the time he was a teenager working on a farm along the Susquehanna Fiver.  He would build his own gliders that would take him across the Susquehanna.  In his 20s he began to build biplanes.  After moving to Philadelphia, Emory worked for an aviation company known as Flying Dutchman Air Service which offered flight instruction and aerial photography.  Emory's flying career ended in 1928 when he was involved in a series of plane crashes.  The final crash injured Emory, but killed one of his passengers.  He died in Philadelphia in 1958 when he slipped on a sidewalk.  It wasn't until a month later that his sister, Mary's grandmother, claimed his body. 

 As far as the records go, Emory Conrad Malick earned his International Pilot's License #105 on March 20, 1912 while attending the Curtiss School of Aviation on North Island, San Diego, California.  He is listed as the first African American pilot to earn his Federal Airline Transport License #1716 in 1927.  On July 24, 1911 he made his first recorded flight in an engine-powered "airplane" which took place in Seven Points, Pennsylvania.  

On September 5 and 7, 1912 he flew his biplane for a Labor Day celebration near Shamokin, Pennsylvania.  In the summer of 1914 he obtained, assembled.  and improved upon...his own Curtiss "pusher" biplane, when he flew over Selingsgrove, Pennsylvania to the "wonderment of all," thus becoming the first pilot to soar through the skies if Snyder Co. in addition to Northumberland County.  In the Philadelphia area he transported passengers for his Flying Dutchman Air Service and worked in aerial photography with the Aero Service Corporation and Dallin Aerial Surveys.  He was also an airplane mechanic as well as a carpenter and master tile-layer.  An interesting fellow so he was, no matter what color his skin might have been.  I only wish I had been able to do what Emory did in his lifetime.  it was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.