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Carole Gurdak remembers flying at a time when flight attendants had height and weight restrictions, when airlines served gourmet meals,moncler jackets men and airplanes were a glamorous and luxurious way to travel. 

In her nearly 40 years as a flight attendant at United Airlines,Garmin Cycling she observed many changes to the flight attendant's job and to the air travel industry. One of the most visible changes was the way flight attendant uniforms evolved from year to year. 

Although she's been retired since 2003, Gurdak maintains her connection to United by volunteering with the United Airlines Historical Foundation, and works with a group of women to organize and archive flight attendant uniforms from the past decades. 

“The part we do is a small part of the big picture,” she said. “We decided to donate our time to all of the uniforms (United has) acquired in the past 10 years and send them to museums across the United States.” 

They work in the basement of United Airlines' old main headquarters in Elk Grove Village. It's the same facility where she received her flight attendant training in 1964. 

As the daughter of a pilot, Gurdak said she always had a passion for flying.Castelli Cycling She grew up in Long Island and, when she was 19 years old, went to get a summer job at Kennedy Airport. She came out with a flight attendant application. 

“I was 19-years old, I didn't know what I was getting myself into,” she said. 

Gurdak got married in 1968, right around the time airlines began allowing their flight attendants to be married. Gurdak's first daughter was born in 1970 and throughout her career she managed to juggle being a mom and a professional. 

Once her kids were grown, she took on an international flight schedule and traveled the world from 1990 until she retired in 2003. 

Now Gurdak volunteers with a group of about five or six women organizing United's supply of old uniforms. 

“We have such a passion for the uniforms,” she said. “We don't want anything to happen to them. Uniforms reflect what's going on in the world.” 

Flipping through pictures of old uniforms, she points out different fashion trends. The skirts got shorter from the 60s to the 70s and hat, purse and jacket styles changed. The uniforms from the 80s have bold patterns and bright colors, and in the 90s pants were introduced. 

Last winter, the Smithsonian contacted Gurdak and the women with whom she works, asking for United Airlines fight attendant uniforms from the 1960s. Since they couldn't find any in the archives, Gurdak sent her own. 

“I still had my 1960s uniforms here, and it was 1960s they wanted,” she said.RadioShack CyclingSpecialized Cycling “I said, ‘How about I donate mine?'” 

In the past year, Gurdak has overseen her old uniforms get carefully packaged and shipped to Washington, D.C. Eventually, she said she'd like to go see the exhibit that uses them. 

Other museums like Flight Path in Los Angeles, San Francisco International Airport's museum and the National Museum of Commercial Aviation in Atlanta have received United's old uniforms. 

Despite being retired nearly 10 years, Gurdak speaks fondly of her flying experiences and the women with whom she worked. 

“We were doctors, we were nurses, we solved all the problems of childhood,” she said. “We talked about our children and our husbands. It was a group of women exchanging ideas. We had this common bond, you knew you could say something personal because they understood, too.”