A woman believed to be the nation's oldest flight attendant has retired at age 70 after logging nearly 4 1/2 solid years in the air during a career that began in 1948.
"I had to have a goal for something and I figured it might as well be old," Connie Walker said Tuesday after she stepped off a Northwest Airlines flight from Seoul.With a sparkle in her eye that might have been a tear, she said her feelings were torn.
"The body is ready to quit and the heart wants to keep going," she said.
Walker, her union and company representatives said that as far as they were aware, she was the nation's oldest flight attendant.
About three dozen friends and co-workers greeted Walker at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with flowers, balloons, hugs and a chorus of "For she's a good lady."
Among the well-wishers was Denise Flanagan, whom Walker helped deliver on a flight to Anchorage 36 years ago. Northwest flew Flanagan from her home in Ludlow, Mass., and her mother, Lorraine Magenau, from Akron, Ohio, to help Walker celebrate her retirement.
They have remained in touch and Walker, who never married, calls Flanagan her daughter.
"We're unofficial family - love, not blood," Flanagan said.
Magenau said it may have been anxiety that brought on the labor during the flight. When Walker came to help, Magenau remembers her saying, "I don't know anything about babies, but I'll do what I can."
Walker started at age 28 in 1948, flying between Portland, Ore., and Billings, Mont. She has spent nearly 4 1/2 years of her life in the air, and her mileage is the equivalent of about 700 trips around the Earth, the airline estimated.
Walker said her next trip will be a vacation cruise "so I don't have to go in and out of an airport and stand in line."