Music’s Aviation Tragedies: Philippa Duke Schuyler

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This one is my fault. I had the wrong name highlighted yesterday. If you want these alphabetically, read this one before yesterday’s. Today we’ll investigate someone you’ve never heard of (oh, like everyone has a milk crate full of Stan Rogers albums? ) and the second of three helicopter crashes on the list. Philippa Duke Schuyler I sort of hate to mention this, but Picky Wedia reports that Philippa Schuyler’s mother spent three years of meditating and eating “whole, raw foods” in preparation for having a “superior” baby. This isn’t “hippie 60s” we’re talking about, this is New York in the late 1920s. The reason I “sort of hate” to mention it is…apparently it worked. Philippa was writing music before she was writing her A-B-C’s. The poster girl for a “child prodigy,” she was playing classical music and had an IQ of 185 by the time she started school. Schuyler had a gift, unquestionably. Her youth and skill made her quite popular, even outside of the classical music world. In addition to her music, she worked as a journalist and a relief worker. The combination of the three took her to then-South Vietnam in 1967. She performed for the troops, reported on the war, and worked with Catholic Church officials to help rescue some children from an area where Catholic and Buddhist tensions were bubbling over. On May 9, 1967, an Army helicopter was taking her on a missionary assignment to help get some of the orphaned children out when the chopper crashed in Da Nang Bay. Schuyler couldn’t swim; therefore, although she survived the actual crash, she drowned. Part of the privilege of doing this countdown is to introduce you to various individuals you’d otherwise never hear about. I was happy to discover this woman’s story. Philippa Duke Schuyler August 2, 1931 - May 9, 1967 (age 35) Place of crash: Da Nang Bay, Da Nang, (South) Vietnam Here’s Schuyler playing the piano for you: