the loudspeakers at the airport, “Well, I guess that’s the last we’ll hear from her.”9
Jerrie Mock couldn’t believe her ears. “I’ll be back,” she thought. “But I hope to never see him again.”10
DID YOU KNOW?
Before Wiley Post flew out of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, and became the first man to fly solo around the world, he worked as a professional pilot. Businessmen paid Wiley to fly them to their destinations. The experienced pilot earned worldwide fame with his record-breaking flight in 1933, but he already had earned worldwide fame as a race pilot competing in air derbies.
Jerrie Mock was not a professional pilot when she took off to fly around the world. She earned her private pilot’s license in 1958, and six years later, with only about 750 hours of flying time behind her, she attempted her historic flight around the world. In order to fly around the world, she needed to get certification to fly her plane using instruments only. She became an instrument-rated pilot before she left the country, but she never had the chance to practice her new skill without an instructor sitting beside her before she left on her around-the-world flight.
Wiley Post was the first man and Jerrie Mock was the first woman to fly solo around the world. By coincidence, both of them also decided to elope when it came time to marry.
FLIGHT TWO
EARLY YEARS AND CHASING DREAMS
GERALDINE “JERRIE” Fredritz grew up in the small town of Newark, Ohio. Born November 22, 1925, to Timothy and Blanche Wright Fredritz, she was the oldest of three daughters. Jerrie was seven years old when her sister Barbara Ann was born, and she was fifteen when her youngest sister Susan completed the family. Every week her family attended Sunday services at the First United Methodist Church.
While Jerrie was still a young girl, her mom gave her strict orders never to cross the busy street in front of their home. But mostly boys lived on her side of the street. One day, after she arrived with a doll in her hand, the boys told her that if she wanted to play, she had better get rid of the baby doll. Jerrie quickly gave up baby dolls for hanging with the boys. She enjoyed their adventurous games, her favorite being cowboys and Indians. Camp Fire Girls meetings gave her a chance to be one of the girls.
Jerrie’s interest in flying began at a very young age. When she was only seven years old, her mother and father took her to a small airfield near Newark, Ohio, during a local festival. The family of three climbed aboard a Ford Trimotor airplane. While in the air, Jerrie stared in amazement at the rows of rooftops, the cows in green pastures, and the tops of the trees. After the ride, she looked up at her mom and dad and said, “I love it! I’m going to be a pilot when I grow up.” Her father patted her on the head and said, “Yes, dear.”1
JERRIE’S FIRST CHILDHOOD HOME IN NEWARK, OHIO
Photograph by the author
As a small child, Jerrie didn’t know much about the world outside the little town of Newark. When her first grade teacher returned from a trip to Europe, she shared stories of the wonderful places she had been. “Most people in my town didn’t travel anywhere. I had no idea what was out there.” To quench her new thirst for adventure, Jerrie read lots of books. “I read books of all types,” she said. “About half were fiction and half nonfiction.”2 Reading books let her travel in her mind, to places she could only dream about.
JERRIE AS A YOUNG GIRL
Susan Reid collection
In the fourth grade at Roosevelt Elementary School, Jerrie dove into her geography books, excited to learn about different cultures and exotic places. In her imagination, she rode across the Sahara Desert astride a two-humped camel in a long, loose dress with a veil draped over her head. “I wanted to see the world, all of it, the jungles, the deserts, and the pyramids.”3 Whenever she heard that her hero Amelia Earhart was taking to the skies, she raced home to sit close beside the radio, keeping track of all the places Amelia visited in her plane. Jerrie wished one day to live such a fantasy life as Amelia’s, flying from country to country.
JERRIE AS A STUDENT AT WOODROW WILSON JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
Susan Reid collection
Jerrie attended Woodrow Wilson Junior High School. At age eleven, she shared her dream of flying around the world with her girlfriends. They looked at her and laughed. One of Jerrie’s friends dreamed of being a housewife, with lots of children, while the other one imagined herself as a movie star.
Jerrie graduated from Newark High School, but she never participated in sports. “At barely five foot tall, no one wanted me on their team. Besides, you have to consider the time. In the 1940s, girls didn’t play many sports.”4 She played the trumpet and the French horn in the high school band, and she excelled at academics. In her senior year, she was the only girl in the advanced mathematics course. “World War II began, and advanced mathematics was offered to prepare the students to join the cause and fight the war,” she said.5
JERRIE AS A STUDENT AT NEWARK HIGH SCHOOL
Susan Reid collection
In her junior year in high school, she took math with a class of seniors. One senior in particular caught her eye. He was the new boy in town, having just moved to Ohio from Connecticut. Russell Mock lived a block away, and they rode the bus together. He sat an aisle apart from Jerrie in math class. They argued about algebra, and he boasted about flying solo in a plane at age sixteen. At first they were just good friends, but soon they dated and went to dances. On weekends they made a mad dash to nearby Buckeye Lake Park, where they rode rides at the amusement park, swam at the swimming pool, and skated at the roller rink. When it came time for the senior prom, Jerrie arrived on the arm of Russell Mock.
After high school, in September of 1943, she attended the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Jerrie was the only woman studying aeronautical engineering; she also took an advanced chemistry class. Being the only female in a class full of male students raised some eyebrows. Some classmates poked fun at her and said the only reason she was in the class was to meet a husband. When she received the only 100 percent on a difficult chemistry test, she silenced their teasing.
In 1944, a career in aviation didn’t seem realistic to Jerrie. Most girls her age were getting married and starting families. At the age of nineteen, Jerrie Fredritz dropped out of college to marry her high school sweetheart, Russell Mock. Since Jerrie didn’t want all the fuss of a big wedding, she and Russ quietly exchanged vows in a courthouse, their ceremony conducted by the justice of the peace. Within two years they had sons, Roger and Gary. Valerie, their only daughter, came along twelve years later.
Jerrie found a way to satisfy her thirst for knowledge while caring for her babies. The Ohio State University had a radio program that taught Spanish, German, and French. Jerrie recorded the radio lessons and practiced
