Jerrie Mock

{{Infobox person

|name = Jerrie Mock

|image = Jerrie Mock 1964c.jpg

|image_size =

|caption = Mock on April 17, 1964

|birth_name = Geraldine Lois Fredritz{{cite news |last1=Weber |first1=Bruce |title=Jerrie Mock, First Solo Female Pilot to Circumnavigate the Globe, Dies at 88 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/us/jerrie-mock-first-solo-female-pilot-to-circumnavigate-the-globe-dies-at-88.html |access-date=December 1, 2019 |work=The New York Times |date=October 4, 2014}}

|birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1925|11|22}}

|birth_place = Newark, Ohio, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2014|9|30|1925|11|22}}

|death_place = Quincy, Florida, U.S.

|occupation =

|spouse = Russell Mock

|parents =

|children = Valerie Armentrout, Gary Mock, Roger Mock

}}

Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock (November 22, 1925 – September 30, 2014) was an American pilot and the first woman to fly solo around the world.{{cite web |last1=Cheng |first1=Lucia |title=Who Was the First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World? |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/who-was-the-first-woman-to-fly-solo-around-the-world-180980542/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=14 August 2022 |date=12 August 2022}} She flew a single engine Cessna 180 (registered N1538C) christened the Spirit of Columbus and nicknamed "Charlie."{{cite web|url=http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/09/13/trailblazing-female-pilot-honored-in-bronze-in-newark.html|title=Trailblazing woman pilot honored in bronze in Newark|author=Narciso, Dean |work=The Columbus Dispatch|date=September 13, 2013|access-date=October 4, 2014}}{{cite book|last=Buchanan|first=Paul D.|title=American Women's Rights Movement: A Chronology of Events and of Opportunities from 1600 to 2008|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lc9Pzsa2zyUC&pg=PA183|access-date=May 22, 2011|date=September 15, 2009|publisher=Branden Books|isbn=978-0-8283-2160-0|pages=183–}} The trip began March 19, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and ended April 17, 1964, in Columbus.{{cite web|url=http://womenaviators.org/JerrieMock.html |title=Women Aviators |access-date=October 4, 2014 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227011718/http://womenaviators.org/JerrieMock.html |archive-date=February 27, 2014 }} It took 29 days, 11 hours and 59 minutes, with 21 stopovers and almost {{convert|22860|mi|km}}.Mock, Jerrie (1970) Three-Eight Charlie. Philadelphia, Lippincott. {{oclc|97976}}

The flight was part of a "race" that developed between Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith who had flown from a field near San Francisco, CA on March 17, 1964; Smith's departure date and flight path was the same as the aviator Amelia Earhart's last flight.{{Cite web|url=https://www.buzzfeed.com/amyksaunders/the-untold-story-of-the-first-woman-to-fly-around-the-world#.oyELQdKoa|title=How An Ohio Housewife Flew Around The World, Made History, And Was Then Forgotten|website=BuzzFeed|access-date=March 19, 2016}} Although they were not in direct competition with each other, media coverage soon began tracking the progress of each pilot, fascinated with who would complete the journey first. Mock was the first to finish. The story of this race is told in a 2023 book by Taylor Phillips, Queen of the Clouds; Joan Merriam Smith and Jerrie Mock's Epic Quest to Become the First Woman to Fly Solo Around the World. Jerrie Mock was subsequently awarded the Louis Blériot medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1965.

In 1970 Mock published the story of her round-the-world flight in the book Three-Eight Charlie.{{cite web|url=http://www.38charlie.com/|title=Three-Eight Charlie|access-date=October 4, 2014}} While that book is now out of print, a 50th anniversary edition was later published including maps, weather charts and photos. Three-Eight Charlie is a reference to the call sign, N1538C, of the Cessna 180 Skywagon Mock used to fly around the world. Before her death, Mock, mother of three children, resided in Quincy, Florida; northwest of the state capital, Tallahassee.{{cite news|url = http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/Jerrie-Mock-Goes-West222846-1.html|title = Jerrie Mock Goes West|access-date = October 15, 2014|last = Durden|first = Rick|date = October 1, 2014| work = AVweb}}

Early life

File:Jerrie Mock with father 1964b.jpg

Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock was born on November 22, 1925, in Newark, Ohio to Timothy and Blanche (Wright) Fredritz. Her paternal grandparents were German emigrants.1900 United States Federal Census During her childhood, she found that she had more in common with the boys. Her interest for flying was sparked when she was 7 years old when she and her father had the opportunity to fly in the cockpit of a Ford Trimotor airplane. In high school, she took an engineering course in which she was the only girl and decided flying was her passion. She graduated from Newark High School in 1943 and went on to attend Ohio State University.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tV3CKGuGoRkC&pg=PT91 | title=Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803–2003 | publisher=Ohio University Press | author=Royster, Jacqueline Jones | year=2003 | pages=91| isbn=9780821415085 }} At OSU, she became a member of Phi Mu. She left her studies at OSU to wed her husband, Russell Mock in 1945.{{cite web | url=http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jerrie-mock-20141002-story.html | title=Geraldine 'Jerrie' Mock dies at 88; first woman to fly solo around world | work=Los Angeles Times | date=October 1, 2014 | author=Colker, David}}

Flight around the world

Mock's flight began and ended at Ohio hometown's Port Columbus Airport. Her expedition's financing included a loan from The Columbus Dispatch newspaper.

She travelled eastbound, over Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, among other countries. After stressful days traveling over the Atlantic, Mock was greeted by the president of the Aero Club of Morocco and stayed the night in a French home, where Mock reports, "there were no nightmares of thunderheads over the Atlantic. Dressed in red satin, I danced in marble palaces."{{cite web | url=https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/food-flight-jerrie-mock%E2%80%99s-moroccan-recipe | title=Food & Flight: Jerrie Mock's Moroccan Recipe| date=July 31, 2016 | access-date=December 22, 2017 | author=Most, MaryCate }} Mock later journeyed to Saudi Arabia, where she landed at Dhahran Airport. In her book Three-Eight Charlie, Mock says that after landing in Saudi Arabia the crowd of men around her looked puzzled. One of the men approached her aircraft. “His white-kaffiyeh-covered head nodded vehemently, and he shouted to the throng that there was no man. This brought a rousing ovation”, she recalled.{{cite web | url=https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/celebrating-jerrie-mock-first-woman-fly-around-world | title=Celebrating Jerrie Mock, the First Woman to Fly Around the World| date=March 11, 2014 | access-date=December 22, 2017}} Mock was quite a spectacle in Saudi Arabia where women would not be allowed to drive cars until 2017,{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-drive.html | title=Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive| newspaper=The New York Times| date=September 26, 2017 | access-date=December 22, 2017| last1=Hubbard| first1=Ben}} much less fly a plane. In Egypt, she mistakenly landed at a secret off-the-map military base instead of the Cairo Airport.

Traveling the world gave Mock a new perspective and experiences. Flying over Vietnam, she noted: "Somewhere not far away a war was being fought, but from the sky above, all looked peaceful."

Accomplishments and recognition

File:Spirit of Columbus in Udvar-Hazy Center, February 2015.JPG, a Cessna 180, is displayed at the Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia]]

= First woman to =

First woman to fly solo around the world
First woman to fly around the world in a single-engine plane
First woman to fly U.S. – Africa via North Atlantic
First woman to fly the Pacific single-engine
First woman to fly the Pacific West to East
First woman to fly both the Atlantic and Pacific
First woman to fly the Pacific both directions

= Official world aviation records: 1964–1969 =

(Sanctioned and accepted by the National Aeronautic Association and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)

1964

Speed around the world, Class C1-c
Speed around the world, Feminine

1965

Speed over a closed course of 500 km, Class C1-b

1966

Distance in a straight line, Feminine

1968

Distance in a closed course, Class C1-c
Distance in a closed course, Feminine
Speed over a recognized course

1969

Speed over a recognized course

= Awards and honors =

File:President Johnson with Jerrie Mock 1964.jpg awards Mock the Federal Aviation Agency Gold Medal on May 4, 1964]]

Federal Aviation Agency Gold Medal for Exceptional Service
Ohio Governor’s Award
Louis Bleriot Silver Medal(World-Wide award of Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Distinguished Service Award
Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce Award of the Year
Experimental Aircraft Association Special Award
Ohio Aviation Trades Association Sparky Award
Amelia Earhart Memorial Award, 1964
Aero Classic Aviation Progress Award, 1965
National Aviation Trades Association Pilot-of-the-Year Award, 1964
Glenn Hammond Curtiss Silver Medal, Pittsburgh OX-5 Club{{cite web | url=http://www.faa.gov/about/history/celebration/media/Jerrie_Mock.pdf | title=The Flying Housewife | work=Faa.gov | access-date=October 1, 2014}}
Milestones in Manned Flight Trophy, Trans World Airlines
Wadsworth, Ohio, Aero Club Special Award
Kansas 99’s Special Recognition Medallion
Special Award of Bexley Civic Association
Women’s Aero Association of Wichita Award
Award of Appreciation, Licking County (Ohio
Columbus Transportation Club Special Award
Sports Woman of the Year, Columbus Citizen-Journal, 1969
Citation of Wichita, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce
September 14, 2013 was declared Jerrie Mock Day by an official proclamation from Newark, Ohio mayor Jeff Hall.{{cite web|url=http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20130914/NEWS01/309140047/Local-aviator-s-legacy-forever-enshrined-statue-Works |title=Local aviator's legacy forever enshrined with statue at The Works|work=The Newark Advocate |access-date=October 4, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006133704/http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20130914/NEWS01/309140047/Local-aviator-s-legacy-forever-enshrined-statue-Works |archive-date= October 6, 2014 |date=September 15, 2013|author=Kanclerz, Jacob }}

=Legacy=

A life-size bronze sculpture of Mock, sculpted by Renate Burgyan Fackler, was unveiled in the courtyard of The Works museum in Newark, Ohio on September 14, 2013. Mock's younger sister, Susan Reid, modeled for the statue while wearing Mock's knit skirt, sweater, and leather shoes that she had worn on her round-the-world flight. According to Wendy Hollinger, the publisher who reissued Mock's book about her flight, Mock did not especially like skirts, but "was in a skirt because she thought it would be socially acceptable, especially in the Middle East."

Mock's Cessna 180 which she flew around the world, the Spirit of Columbus, hangs in the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian. In June 2007, Mock flew to Chantilly, Virginia, to see The Spirit of Columbus for the first time in many years. Mock "was so pleased to see her plane 'airborne' again".{{cite web | url=https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/remembering-jerrie-mock-1925-2014 | title=Remembering Jerrie Mock (1925–2014)| date=October 3, 2014 | access-date=December 22, 2017 | author=Cochrane, Dorothy }} The plane previously was in storage, but with the opening of the Udvar-Hazy Center, went back on display. In 2022, the plane was moved from the Udvar-Hazy Center to the new "Thomas W. Hass We All Fly" gallery in the museum on the National Mall in DC.

The United States Air Force named a street in honor of Mock at Rickenbacker AFB (presently Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base and Rickenbacker International Airport) in Lockbourne, Ohio (near Columbus).

A plaque bearing Mock's accomplishments can be found in the Tallahassee International Airport's Aviation Wall of Fame in Tallahassee, Florida.

In 2022, Mock was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio. {{cite web |title=Enshrinee "Jerrie" Mock |url=https://nationalaviation.org/enshrinee/geraldine-jerrie-mock/ |website=nationalaviation.org |publisher=National Aviation Hall of Fame |access-date=27 February 2023}}

Death

Mock died in her home in Quincy, Florida with her daughter at her side on September 30, 2014. Thanks to the help of a volunteer pilot, she took her final flight in a Cessna 180 as her ashes were returned to the clouds. {{cite web | url=http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/10/01/jerrie-mock-obituary.html | title=Jerrie Mock, first woman to fly solo around the globe, dies at 88 | work=Columbus Dispatch | date=October 1, 2014 | access-date=October 1, 2014 | author=Rinehart, Earl | archive-date=October 2, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141002000130/http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/10/01/jerrie-mock-obituary.html | url-status=dead }}

Sources

External links

[http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19760976000 Jerrie's Cessna 180] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413204302/https://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19760976000 |date=April 13, 2016 }} at the National Air and Space Museum
[http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/mock.html Geraldin(e) "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock (1925-)]
[https://www.angelfire.com/fl4/HisBeauty/pages/flyworld.html College freshman essay written by Jerrie's granddaughter]
[http://www.38charlie.com/ Three-Eight Charlie 50th Anniversary]
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/amyksaunders/the-untold-story-of-the-first-woman-to-fly-around-the-world BuzzFeed article]
[https://ohiovtheworldpodcast.com/2019/10/12/episode-4-jerrie-mock-v-the-world-is-out-click-to-hear-the-epic-story-of-the-1st-solo-female-flight-around-the-globe/ Ohio V. The World Podcast: Jerrie Mock v. the World], October 12, 2019

Category:1925 births

Category:2014 deaths

Category:American aviation pioneers

Category:Aviators from Ohio

Category:People from Quincy, Florida

Category:People from Newark, Ohio

Category:Ohio State University alumni

Category:Writers from Ohio

Category:American women aviators

Category:American people of German descent

Category:Women aviation pioneers

Category:21st-century American women