I visited Agnes, 87, in the bright sunroom of her assisted living facility. She sat upright at the table, immaculately dressed, and warmly welcomed me. I learned not to be fooled by the prim exterior. Agnes is a risk-taker and believes in living life to the fullest. Her family did not have enough money to send her to college, so she went to work as a telphone operator.

 Then, on an impulse, she decided to become an airplane pilot, so that she could serve in the Women’s Airforce Service. The WAS was just being organized at that time to allow women to fly non-combat missions (and thus free up men to fly in combat). She received her license and underwent extensive training, but, the war ended before she was called up (“I cried!,” she told me).

Around this time, however, John came into the picture. Here’s Agnes’s story:

John lived around the corner from me, him and his family did, and there was one sister that I associated with, like that. And I used to go up to the house and I’d tease him even though he was six years older than we were. So we sort of grew up together.

Well, I used to go with a fellow right after  high school, name of Bob. And Bob calls me one night, and says “I can’t go to the dance tonight with you. I’ve got the measles.”  Well, I really wanted to go, and I didn’t want to go alone because it was formal and I thought, “What on earth am I going to do?” And then I said to myself:  “I’m going to ask John.” I don’t know why, but I did.  And I went up and said, “Bob’s got the measles and he can’t go to the dance, will you go with me?”  And John says, “Sure.”  We went out, had a wonderful time, and that was the start of it.

Then one day John shows up at the air field and I said, “What are you doing down here? You know you’re not supposed to come here.”  And he said, “I’m just making sure you’re enjoying yourself.”  So one of the flying instructors was there and he said to me, “Take him up.” So we went up, and then John helped me clean up the plane. Then John heads down to the instructor and right in front of me he says, “When do I start taking lessons?” Right then and there! His mother was his first passenger. That day pretty much sealed it for us.

He was an honest man, and humble. He had an injured right hand because he was burned as a baby. He could not go into WW II because of his hand. And some of the girls would say to me, “How could you go out with him with a hand like that?”  I said, “I don’t look at the hand. I look at him and he’s a good man.”  John was very calm, I’m the hyper type, and he was soothing. I’d get mad – one time I threw a dish because I was so mad at him so he picked another dish out of the cupboard and handed it to me and said, “Here, do you want another one?” 

Oh, he was a good man!