Fay Gillis Wells, 1908-2002 Minneapolis, Minnesota
In 1929, as a 20-year-old student pilot, Fay Gillis Wells became the one of the first
women to parachute from a plane when the biplane she was flying broke apart. That
courage to take the big leap would characterize Wells' careers as a pioneering aviator
and a foreign correspondent. She ferried and demonstrated the early planes designed
by the legendary Glenn Curtiss, becoming the first woman to be employed in such a
job. During that time, Fay met other women aviators, including Amelia Earhart, with
whom she co-founded the women's flying group, the Ninety-Nine's. Wells covered the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia with her journalist husband, their bylines sometimes
appearing together on a front page. She traveled with the White House press corps to
Vietnam and was one of three women journalists covering President Richard Nixon's
historic China trip in 1972. In 2002, when she died at the age of 94, Wells was serving
her two great loves, sitting on a NASA advisory board helping to select the first
journalist who would fly in space. She regretted never having had the chance to
become an astronaut.
In 1929, as a 20-year-old student pilot, Fay Gillis Wells became the one of the first
women to parachute from a plane when the biplane she was flying broke apart. That
courage to take the big leap would characterize Wells' careers as a pioneering aviator
and a foreign correspondent. She ferried and demonstrated the early planes designed
by the legendary Glenn Curtiss, becoming the first woman to be employed in such a
job. During that time, Fay met other women aviators, including Amelia Earhart, with
whom she co-founded the women's flying group, the Ninety-Nine's. Wells covered the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia with her journalist husband, their bylines sometimes
appearing together on a front page. She traveled with the White House press corps to
Vietnam and was one of three women journalists covering President Richard Nixon's
historic China trip in 1972. In 2002, when she died at the age of 94, Wells was serving
her two great loves, sitting on a NASA advisory board helping to select the first
journalist who would fly in space. She regretted never having had the chance to
become an astronaut.
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