Willmar woman recalls her encounter with Howard Hughes
By Scott Thoma
Not many people can say they got close enough to the reclusive Howard Hughes to touch him, but Sandy Pierce of Willmar can.
“I leaned over and tapped (Hughes) on the shoulder and said, “Is that him, mommy?” Pierce recalls her parents telling her the story later in life.
Pierce, who was four years old at the time, was being held by one of her parents among a large crowd of Hughes’ employees who were welcoming him back from Washington in 1947. He had testified at a Senate hearing as to whether or not he misused $40 million in funds from a government war-time contract to build a plane that could carry 700 troops across the Atlantic. The war ended before the plane was completed and there was no proof of any wrongdoing by Hughes or his company.
A photograph taken by a newspaper in 1947 shows Pierce being held just a few feet from Hughes. Pierce could be one of the last, if not the last, living person that can say they touched Howard Hughes.
“My grandpa, both parents and myself all worked for Hughes Aircraft Company,” Pierce said. “The funny thing is that the company really only made the one plane, his H-4 Hercules aircraft, which was nicknamed the Spruce Goose by critics. Hughes hated that name, though.”
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on Feb. 14, 1934 by Hughes in Glendale, CA, as a division of Hughes Tool Company. Besides the Hughes H-4 Hercules, the company produced the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile.
“When my parents worked there, there were just a few employees,” Pierce said. “My dad, Chuck Bradley, worked from 1946 to 1973 doing engineering-type work. He was a wing planner on the Spruce Goose. My mom, Betty, worked there for a few years, too.”
Pierce’s grandfather, Ed Weber, was a hydraulics foreman and worked on the Spruce Goose.
Pierce was employed at Hughes Aircraft Company as an air conditioning mechanic from 1972-2000.
“There were 60,000 employees when I worked there, including all of the sub-divisions,” she said. “(Hughes) was fantastic to his employees. I never actually got to meet him in person when I worked there, although he might have been at one of the company’s picnics that I was at. He was never around much. But he was good to his employees and they thought quite highly of him.”
Pierce told of a man who farmed beans next to the Hughes Aircraft Company and would sell his beans on the side of the road, which was actually Hughes’ property.
“One of the bigwigs with the company didn’t like that this man was selling beans on the property and was going to have him removed, but Howard Hughes said to let the man sell his beans there.”
Hughes was not only a business magnate and aircraft pilot, but he was also an aerospace engineer, philanthropist, inventor, and film producer.
The Hercules was the world’s largest flying boat and the largest aircraft made from wood. It had the longest wingspan of any aircraft (319 feet, 11 inches), although it has since been surpassed. The Hercules flew only once for one mile and 70 feet above the water, with Hughes at the controls, on Nov. 2, 1947. Although it was nicknamed the Spruce Goose, the aircraft was actually made from birch, rather than aluminum, because the contract required that Hughes build the aircraft of “non-strategic” materials.
Hughes inherited a large sum of money from his father, who invented an oil drilling bit that is still used today. Hughes, himself, was also credited with some useful inventions such as the “Cross Your Heart” bra and the adjustable hospital bed.
Hughes, who died in 1976 at age 70, was best known during his lifetime as one of the richest and most influential people in the world. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle, some say were caused by his extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder and also from chronic pain brought on by two near-fatal plane crashes.
His reclusiveness and chronic pain made him practically unrecognizable in his later years. His hair, beard, fingernails, and toenails had all grown long because of the pain he was in and because of his OCD. Although he was 6-foot-4, he weighed only 90 pounds prior to his death.
After Pierce retired from Hughes Aircraft Company in 2000, she moved to Willmar in west central Minnesota.
“My boyfriend worked at Hughes Aircraft Company, too, and he was from Willmar, so we moved there,” she explained.
Note: Pierce has developed into a gold-medal swimmer at the Senior Games and was featured in an earlier Senior Perspective story.
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