Jerrie Mock

Comrade Misfit put up a post about Jerrie Mock this morning. It didn't mean much until I followed the links and found she flew from Columbus, Ohio. That rings a bell! I was in Columbus then, and I remember there was a big fuss about Mock somebody. This happened right around the time Kennedy got shot, and that kind of overshadowed everything from that time period. Poking around, I came across this newspaper clipping:

Front page of The Columbus Dispatch, January 19, 1964, Via dispatch.com

So it wasn't just Columbus, it was Bexley, the same small suburb of Columbus where I went to junior high school.

Statue of Jerrie Mock at The Works

     More digging uncovered a statue erected at The Works in Newark, Ohio. Newark is about 40 miles East of Columbus. After we moved to the farm near Highwater, Newark became the local 'big city', i.e. where you went if you needed something more than a loaf of bread. I'm not sure why Newark got the statue.

Jerrie's flight path. Joan's flight path.

At the same time that Jerrie was making her flight, Joan Merriam Smith from California was making her own attempt.

Three Eight Charlie - Amazon has one copy of her book available for $500. Phoenix Graphics is selling paperback versions for $18. Kindle doesn't count.

P.S. I was delivering The Dispatch then. Did you see what it said on the front page? 208 pages! I don't think you could get 208 pages if you piled up an entire months worth of The Oregonian.