Cartoon Drawings of Grant and Selma Donaldson, circa 1928

Grant H. Donaldson was trained as a pilot for World War I, then became a stunt pilot, before flying mail and passenger routes for Pacific Air Transport, a company found in 1926 and taken over by Boeing in 1928. Donaldson may also have flown for the Seattle Flying Service was started in 1928 by Vern Gorst and flew out of the "Gorst Sand Lot, " where Boeing Field is located today. Donaldson was seriously injured when his mail plane, en route from Medford, Oregon to Portland, Oregon on October 2, 1928, crashed in the fog, killing the only passenger on board. Donaldson recovered and married the woman, who, according to one account, "waited by his bedside for nearly a year while his burns healed." Presumably this was Selma Donaldson, who is shown in 1930 census records to be married to Grant H. Donaldson.