OLD RHINEBECK AERODROME: COLE & RITA PALEN
The Visionary Aviator Takes a Wife and Life Partner for the Aerodrome
Stan Segalla, who retired last year at age 84 from performing as Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome’s Flying Farmer after 50 years, was one of Cole Palen’s closest friends and describes Cole’s courtship of Rita Weidner. “It was unusual, almost like he had something to hide… as if going to the city to see his lady friend was somehow being unfaithful to the Aerodrome.”
According to friends, Cole would use the excuse that he was going shopping for cameras as a veiled justification for making frequent trips to New York City. But even after the truth was out, there was speculation about whether or not he would give up his colorful bachelorhood. Cole apparently made one attempt to get some pre-nuptial counseling from his friend Gordon Bainbridge. He went to Gordon’s house rambling about a myriad of things and finally blurting out, “What do you think of married life?” Gordon responded with an enthusiastic endorsement of Rita as Cole’s choice for a wife. The rest of the conversation on the subject of marriage ended and Cole abruptly started talking about airplanes again.
Rita relates that she first met Cole in 1964. “I met him at a New Year’s Eve dance in Rosendale, New York, across the Hudson River from Rhinebeck. He came over and asked me to dance…neither one of us was very good at dancing,” He told her that he owned a little airport and some airplanes. Before long they both sensed there was the potential for much more than friendship. They were married on March 17, 1967; few people knew about it in advance and they slipped off for a quiet honeymoon in Florida. Rita said, “I needed him and he needed me and that didn’t change for a single minute during our life together.”
Rita’s transition from living in Queens, New York to the Palen house at the Aerodrome is described from differing perspectives. Palen referred to it as the “murder house.” Allegedly a murder had taken place at the house and it had been vacant for years which helped him buy it and the farm for a great price. Some say he had a rotary engine that he was working on in the kitchen. That could be true, but the fact is, he had most of the makings of an entire Fokker Dr.1 Tri-plane strewn about the house with the fuselage, a work in progress, taking up much of the living room.
At Rita’s insistence the house underwent a transformation with new plumbing and remodeling of the kitchen. But his cronies were delighted to hear that the living room would continue to serve as the winter workshop for Palen’s aircraft building. The near complete fuselage of the Dr.1 had already established squatter’s rights. It was difficult to clear the clutter of aircraft parts and tools to make it resemble a home. But it was even more challenging to break the habits of the persistent and frequent visits by Cole’s friends arriving and departing without invitation using it as a base of operations for their common interests with Cole.
Rita was well-prepared with organization and business skills. She had been working as a secretary for a construction company in Queens and played a key role in the business as the corporate secretary, an officer in the corporation, as well.
She proved to be an excellent balance for Cole Palen freeing him from the mundane burdens of running the business to his visionary pursuit of building his museum collection and developing the air shows. The Aerodrome started showing a profit and she deserves credit for her part in making the business aspects of the operation more professional.
In early 1993 Cole Palen suffered a stroke raising the specter of his mortality with the existence and future of Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. It was that year that the Rhinebeck Aerodrome Museum Foundation was formed. It had a board of directors and a new History of Flight Foundation Building was erected adjacent to the three Quonset hut type buildings that housed Palen’s antique airplanes and related artifacts.
That winter after Cole and Rita went down to their winter home in Florida, Rita also suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. Cole Palen passed away in his sleep while she was undergoing treatment.
In characterizing him after his death, Rita explained: “I admired Cole for so many things. He was the most amazing man I had ever seen in his ability to do so much with nothing. And I had never seen anyone to whom money meant so little. He simply didn’t care. He measured wealth as things accomplished. His fortune was the knowledge that he had accomplished so many of his goals.”
Rita made a remarkable recovery and returned to help drive Cole Palen’s legacy forward until her death on August 12, 2002.
By Don Fleming