Science Source ftp Apr 2015

Marjorie Stinson, only woman to whom a pilot's license has been granted by Army & Navy Committee of Aeronautics in World War 1. Marjorie Stinson (1896 - April 15, 1975) was an American pioneer aviator. Encouraged by her sister Katherine's success, she decided to learn to fly and enrolled in the Wright School at Dayton in 1914. She joined her family in establishing a flight school in San Antonio. She was inducted into the US Aviation Reserve Crops, as its only woman, in 1915. In 1916, with the war in Europe raging, the Royal Canadian Flying Corps began sending their cadets to the Stinson School for training. She became known as "The Flying Schoolmarm" and her students as "The Texas Escadrille." The school closed at the end of the war in 1918. From 1917 to 1928, Miss Stinson barnstormed at county fairs and airports across the nation. She moved in 1930 to Washington where she worked as a draftsman at the War Department for 15 years. She retired in 1945 and returned to her first love, aviation, devoting her time to research into the history of aviation. She died in 1975 at the age of 79 and her ashes were scattered over San Antonio Airport, where she learned to fly.