Sarah 'Babe' Kalishek

In her teens, Sarah “Babe” Kalishek (1902-1999) left home with a traveling vaudeville act, where she performed as a singer and as an assistant to a trained animal act. Before long, she found herself training animals for silent films in California. It was there she saw a newspaper ad for Barr’s Flying Circus. ('Daredevil In the Sky' by Kylie Kalishek). Barr’s Flying Circus in Venice, California was looking for a woman willing to learn aerial acrobatics. She thought, “It sounded interesting” and was soon wing-walking at 75 mph. (San Diego Air and Space Museum)

By 1919, Sarah was learning to fly planes herself, while still spending three hours a day in the air practicing her acrobatic antics. Some of Sarah’s death defying feats included dancing on the wings, riding the loop-the-loop, playing tag with another acrobat, and dangling only by her knees or teeth.

While across Japan, “Babe Barr” was shocking crowds of 100,000 with their first glimpse of aerial acrobatics. After leaving “The Barr Family,” she returned to Venice and filmed a series of instructional films for the Japanese government at the Pacific Airline field piloted by Howard Paterson and Frank Clark, possibly under the name “Miss Babe Kalishek.” In 1925, Sarah joined Hick’s Flying Circus, performing in a wingwalking act with her younger brother, Clifford Kalishek. After their successful season of barnstorming, she returned to her hometown and opened a flight school. While teaching others to fly, she was simultaneously campaigning to put the neighboring town of Escanaba on the air map; a port that is still used today.

In 1926, Sarah walked the wings of an airplane piloted by Art Goebel under the Arroyo Seco Bridge in Pasadena, California, accompanied by Gladys Ingle, a member of the 13 Blackcats. Sources have credited Sarah with achievements such as: The first woman to transfer planes without a ladder, the fastest plane change (three minutes), and the first woman to jump with a parachute, a feat that earned her top billing in a show over Amelia Earhart (from 'Daredevil In the Sky' by Kylie Kalishek).

She is believed to be the first American woman to jump from a plane with a parachute. “Babe” barnstormed for a few years, then retired in 1928. (San Diego Air and Space Museum)