Other Comments:
A bookplate inside a copy of Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines
by Sally Van Wagenen Keil at Radnor Memorial Library in Wayne, PA.
I began reading about the WASPs at the local library while I was back home one summer. This was the second book that I read. I glanced right past the bookplate and it was only later I realized that Mary was one of the thirty-eight and that here was a local connection to the history.
There is a article about Mary at WASPs on the Web and also a tribute in her memory, after a poem by James Whitcomb Riley.
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MARY HOLMES HOWSON
Class: 44-W-4 Trainee
Born: February 16, 1919
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Graduate: Smith College
Mary began her flight training to become a WASP
on November 1, 1943 at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas.
While returning from a cross-country flight in a PT-19, Mary was killed in a mid-air collision in the traffic pattern at Avenger Field, on April 16, 1944-- just three weeks before her scheduled graduation.
Remembering Mary
Tribute
Mary's mom's interview
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R E M E M B E R I N G | M A R Y
1944: Mary Howson, a recent graduate of Smith and a WASP trainee, was killed in a mid-air collision near Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas just three weeks before she was to graduate from the AAF flight training school at Avenger. Her flight was returning from a �??cross country�?? that day as the news of a mid-air collision filled the air-waves and spread throughout Avenger Field. It was soon learned that a trainee in one of the lower classes had not landed after taking off on her first solo flight--but who was in the other aircraft? As each of the trainees from class 44-W-4 returned and landed her plane safely, the list of �??unaccounted for�?? aircraft grew shorter. At last, there was only one plane which had not returned. Its pilot? Mary Howson.
Mary�??s body was shipped home to Pennsylvania in a cheap pine box, her funeral at the expense of her family. Her classmates took up a collection so that a classmate could escort her body home. Because the WASP had not been officially recognized as �??military�??, there were no benefits and no gold star allowed in the window of her parent�??s home to signify that a person in that household had been killed in the line of duty. Her classmates and family were not even allowed to place an American flag on her coffin.
Some four weeks after Mary�??s class graduated, her mother requested permission to come to Avenger Field and address the trainees. She wanted them to let their families know what to expect if anything should happen to their daughter so they would not be as totally shocked as she had been when she was notified of Mary�??s death. As she traveled from Pennsylvania to Texas, she carried with her the telegram which she had received from the War Department. As she finished talking to the trainees, she opened the yellow telegram and read it to them. All it said was, �??Your daughter was killed this morning. Where do you want us to ship the body?�??
On Memorial Day weekend, 2005, the 1929 hangar on Avenger Field was officially opened. During the ceremony, a thirty-five foot flagpole with an American flag was unveiled. It was donated by one of Mary's classmates, and placed on the grounds as a permanent reminder, to all who pass by, of the service and sacrifices of the courageous young women pilots of WWII and the freedom they helped preserve.
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Tribute to Mary Holmes Howson, WASP Trainee
I cannot say, I will not say
That she is dead.
She is merely flown away.
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
She has soared to a strange new land.
And left us gazing up at the sky,
We, who are earthbound,we, who sigh.
Yet pause and think how surpassing fair,
It needs must be since she lingers there.
And you, O you, who wistfully yearn,
For the landing plane and the glad return.
Think of her as soaring on,
as dear in the love of there as the love of here.
She has climbed to the peaks above storm and cloud,
She has found the light of the sun and of God.
I cannot say, I will not say
That she is dead.
She is merely flown away.
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