Dorothy Rice Sims a mutual friend, George Biddle, and wrote in her 1938 autobiography, "Curiouser and Curiouser", "I inquired Waldo’s height—he was six feet two. This seemed a dignified height. I told George to produce Waldo, which he did. We got married in Madrid, in a German Methodist Church, with the American vice-consul, who was a Filipino, to make it legal.” A website using the name "Mile High Club" regards the "Club's" "founder" as pilot and design engineer Lawrence Sperry as the "Club's" "founder", along with "socialite Mrs. Waldo Peirce" (Dorothy Rice Sims) citing their flight in an autopilot-equipped Curtiss Flying Boat near
Paul A. Sperry running start and stopped dead in his tracks. This was the invention of the first pair of Sperry Top-Siders. In 1937, Sperry applied for a United States patent for his non-skid sole. He first offered the patent to the United States Rubber Company of Connecticut. The company turned him down because the sole would cost $4.50, when an expensive shoe at the time cost $3.75. Sperry then offered the patent to Converse Rubber Company in Boston, Massachusetts, which agreed to make blank rubber soles and ship them to Sperry for siping and then assemble the finished shoes and return them