Pat Powers Rothacker's Careers
Photos courtesy of Pat Powers Rothacker
In 1959, Pat Powers was working in a secretarial position at Pepsi-International. She decided to become a stewardess and went to work for Capital Airlines. She flew on DC-3's, DC-4's, Constellations, and Viscounts. In 1960, Pat got married to Captain Ira Fargotstein, a fighter pilot, and retired. Tragically, he died in a road accident only six months later, in February, 1961. She then returned to flying for non-sked airlines. While on a charter flight, she met Capt. Ray Poole at the Palace Hotel in Frankfurt. He suggested that Pat call Seaboard's Chief Stewardess, Jan Irwin, about a job, and she did. Pat flew for Seaboard from 1962 to until 1966, when she was furloughed. Pat got a job managing the travel department at Columbia's Electronic Research Laboratories (which became the Riverside Research Institute). There, she met Donald Rothacker, an engineer-physicist. They married and have one daughter, Marlene. In 1978, they moved to Fairfax, Virginia, where Pat owned and operated a travel agency for eleven years. Pat and Donald attended the 2007 SPAR reunion.
In 2004, Pat's book about her airline career, White Gloves to Washington, was published. She has a web site for her book at
The dust jacket is shown below. Click on either image to see larger version
Front
Pat is on the right (in a Capital uniform.)Back
