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 speaking foreign languages while changing diapers and rocking 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