Billie Downing

Billie Marie (Beautnagel) Downing of North Reading passed away peacefully on October 13. She was 92.

Billie was born in Floresville, Texas just outside of San Antonio in 1931. She was the eldest of four daughters born to Mary and William Beautnagel. Billie was educated in San Antonio. 

In 1962, she met and married the love of her life, the late Stuart “Stu” Butler Downing in San Antonio Texas. They lived briefly in California before settling in North Reading, where she lived for over 50 years.

Billie earned her private pilots license at Hanscom Air Force Base, where she also worked as a civil servant for the United States Department of Defense. She had her first solo flight on June 3rd,1964 at the age of 32.

She and her late husband Stu owned a Cessna 172 and flew extensively throughout the United States, including multiple cross country trips and flights to Alaska. They also traveled together around the world, including memorable trips to China and Australia. Billie, an avid photographer, created a wonderful collection of aerial photos, documenting her aerial adventures and documenting a stunning array of geometrics created by fields, mountains, and water. She always remembered where each photograph was taken.

Once Billie received her pilot's license, she immediately joined the Ninety-Nines, the International Organization of Women Pilots established in 1929 with the help of Amelia Earhart. With the Ninety-Nines she took part in many different flying activities (air races, treasure hunts from the air), fundraising through publication of a cookbook, Wings in the Kitchen, public service, and outreach. Billie flew and placed first in the 1972 AWNEAR (All Women New England Air Race) with Lois Auchterlone, flying a 180 horsepower Piper Cherokee. She attended many International Conventions, helping to host the 1970 convention at the Mount Washington hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. In 1971, she flew to a convention in Wichita Kansas with 3 other ‘99er’s’.

She acted as Treasurer and then Secretary of the New England chapter of the 99s, and was on various committees over the years. Even when she could no longer fly, she was hosting 99 Christmas parties at her home in North Reading.

What flying and the 99’s afforded to each of its members, were remarkable lifetime friendships.

Billie once wrote “There is a definite kinship among all of us who fly, but there is something else we feel for certain people who inspire us and motivate us and it has nothing to do with what we do but what the person is.” Although Billie wrote that in 1973 for someone else, today it speaks of her.

Billie leaves behind numerous friends and her beloved family: her nephew Michael Moore of Portland, Oregon; her sister Camilla Hardmeyer of Oakland, California; and her nephew and niece, Joshua Downing and Noelle Rudloff of North Reading.

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Painting credit: Sharon Elwell