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WHENEVER anyone asks me about my work in aviation I know that sooner or later I shall hear, “And, of course, you were mechanical when you were a girl, weren’t you?” As a matter of fact, in a small way, I was—witness the trap I made to catch the chickens that strayed into our yard. My girlhood was much like that of many another American girl who was grow­ing up at the time I was, with just the kind of fun and good times we all had then.

Looking back now, however, I can see certain threads in what I did that were fully as important in leading me to aviation as being mechanical per­haps was. There is the thread of my father’s being a railroad man and the many trips we had together—by which I discovered the fascination of new people and new places. There is the thread of lik­ing all kinds of sports and games and of not being afraid to try those that some of my elders in those days looked upon as being only for boys. There is the thread of liking to experiment—perhaps this thread is the same as the one I have just mentioned—and of the something inside me that has always liked to try new things. There they all are, weaving in and out and here and there through the years before aviation and I got together.