babies.
While living in Bexley, Ohio, Jerrie and Russ enjoyed gourmet cooking and hosting three-course dinners by candlelight. After discussing which country to visit that evening, they set the table according to the traditions of the country and created exotic dishes from that part of the world. They welcomed many foreign exchange students into their house and learned their customs and traditions. Jerrie especially loved learning about the foods their visitors ate, and how they cooked their meals.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, most women stayed at home with their children. Russ worked full-time as an advertising executive, and Jerrie worked part-time at many different jobs. Since the couple shared a passion for the opera, Jerrie talked about the Metropolitan Opera on the air for a local radio station on Saturday afternoons. She also hosted a local television show on Sunday afternoons called Youth Has Its Say. Every week, she chose four students from different schools in the Columbus area. The youths debated everything from global politics to a woman’s place in the home.
JERRIE AFFECTIONATELY NAMED HER LUSCOMBE TWEETY BIRD
Courtesy of Phoenix Graphix
Jerrie and Russ purchased their first airplane in 1952, and affectionately named the 1946 Luscombe Tweety Bird. In September of 1956, Jerrie took her first solo cross-country flight, a requirement for getting a private pilot’s license. She flew her blue-and-white airplane to Kelley’s Island on Lake Erie. After a successful landing, she sat on the runway, helpless. She needed to head back to Columbus to complete her solo flight, but Tweety had no starter and no electrical system. She had to spin the plane’s propellers by hand and, being only five feet tall, it was impossible. Russ had always helped her to start the engine, and she assumed there would be someone on the island to assist her. Luckily, before the sun set, a pilot stopped by the airport, spun Tweety’s propeller, and sent her on her way.
One day, some friends invited Jerrie to join them on their Sunday morning routine of flying to an airport on the Indiana border for breakfast. Jerrie had a bad feeling and decided not to join the group of young men. During the flight, one of the planes came up behind the other and knocked its tail off. Both planes went down. No one survived. Shaken by the tragedy, Jerrie stopped flying briefly. When she resumed flying, Jerrie flew solo, renewing her permit year after year, not yet ready or willing to take passengers along. While her children were in school, Jerrie continued to take flying lessons.
A couple of years later, she decided the time had come to get a private pilot’s license. With a private pilot’s license there would be fewer restrictions than with a solo permit. She would be able to take passengers along and she could fly for longer distances. In 1958, she met all the requirements, and she passed her test to finally get her private pilot’s license. To celebrate her accomplishment, she flew her plane from Port Columbus to Newark-Heath airport and picked up two very special passengers, her mom and sister Susan. Susan’s eyes sparkled as she recalled the big day. “I still remember how exciting it was,” she said. “And I wasn’t scared at all.”6
Russ got his private pilot’s license on the same day as Jerrie. To celebrate their achievement, the couple took a vacation and flew to St. Pierre, a French island in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near Canada. In the hotel dining room, Jerrie heard pilots communicating their positions over the Atlantic from the radio room. It sounded so exciting that she vowed to Russ that one day she would fly an airplane over the ocean.
Owing to her knowledge of airplanes and flying, Jerrie managed Price Field airport in 1961, making her the first woman to manage an airport in the state of Ohio. In 1962, Russ and Jerrie Mock, along with a friend, Alfred J. Baumeister, purchased a single-engine Cessna 180. Russ used the plane mainly for business trips, but Jerrie entered a woman’s race the same year they purchased it. Unfortunately, Jerrie came in last place. She explained, “I took a friend along and she was afraid. She had a panic attack, and I had to take her back, and let her out of the plane. She calmed down, and we took off again, but it added an extra hour to my flight.”7
One night, up to her elbows in dishwater at the kitchen sink, Jerrie complained about how bored she was being a housewife and doing the same thing over and over again, day after day. “Maybe you should get in your plane and fly around the world,” Russ said mockingly. “All right,” she responded. “I will.”8
Jerrie mentioned to Baumeister that she would like to fly the Cessna around the world. Baumeister agreed to the idea, but later admitted that he thought she was joking. But Jerrie never joked when it came to flying. She decided the odds were in her favor, and when she discovered that no woman had yet flown around the world, she set out to follow her childhood dream.
Their friend, Alfred Baumeister, was also a co-worker of Jerrie’s husband at Bell Sound. While putting in a sound system at Lockbourne Air Force Base, he met Brigadier General Dick Lassiter. He told Lassiter about Jerrie’s idea to fly around the world. Lassiter agreed to “unofficially” help her plan a route, and to get clearances when needed. In a top-secret room in the Pentagon, General Lassiter and Jerrie Mock mapped out a route around the world. Major Arthur C. Weiner of the United States Air Force also helped Jerrie by studying weather reports and drawing twenty-four flight plans for different legs of the flight. Amelia Earhart took along navigator Fred Noonan in her airplane; Jerrie Mock took along the flight plans of navigator Art Weiner.9 Some of the flight maps drawn by Major Weiner were almost ten feet in length and had to be folded accordion-style so they could be stored in the cramped cockpit.
Cablegrams were sent back and forth, asking countries to allow Jerrie to land at certain airports or air force bases. Some countries just didn’t want her. Jerrie wrote letters and visited consulates all over Washington, D.C., filling out paperwork to obtain the permissions needed to fly over and to land in the foreign countries along her route. Abdullah Hababi, from the embassy of Saudi Arabia, sent a cablegram granting permission to land as long as no “undesirable passengers” were aboard when she landed! After obtaining all the necessary permissions, Jerrie and General Lassiter discussed what equipment, and what additional emergency equipment, she would need to bring along.
While Jerrie was busy getting her paperwork in order, the family vacation plane was being transformed into a long-distance flier. With the words Spirit of Columbus emblazoned on its nose, and a shiny red-and-white paint job, Charlie looked ready to streak across the open skies. The eleven-year-old plane was renewed, inside and out. At the push of a switch, a brand new 225-horsepower engine rumbled under the cowling after being serviced by Continental Motors of Muskegon, Michigan. The engine was tested, dismantled, reassembled, and tested again four times. Jerrie flew to Fort Lauderdale for the installation of a long-range radio and then off to a Cessna service shop at the Wichita Municipal Airport in Kansas that specialized in long-distance and overseas flight preparation. Charlie was equipped with dual short-range radios, twin radio-direction finders, and other components found in larger airplanes. Massive metal gas tanks were strapped in, replacing three passenger seats. With cabin fuel tanks and wing fuel tanks, Charlie was capable of carrying 183 gallons of gas and flying 3,500 miles without a stop. Only one seat was needed. Jerrie was flying solo.
Her departure date in April 1964 was less than three months away when a National Aeronautic Association official called to tell her a pilot from California also wanted to become the first woman to fly around the world. A twenty-seven-year-old professional pilot named Joan Merriam Smith planned to follow the same route as Amelia Earhart. The NAA represents the FAI, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, in the United States. One rule of the FAI is that only one pilot at a time from each country can apply to make an attempt to set the same record. Jerrie had been planning her trip for over a year. She burst into action that same evening, and hopped on a plane bound for
