Joyce Whitmore in pilot garb (MS-456)
The Joyce Whitmore Aviation Scrapbook (MS-456) contains newspaper clippings and photographs chronicling Joyce Whitmore’s life as a student pilot in the Civilian Pilot Training Program at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. Contents include newspaper articles she wrote about her experience, photographs of her classmates and instructors, and photographs of aircraft and airports she encountered throughout the western United States. Whitmore was also a distant cousin of the Wright Brothers.
Joyce Whitmore was born October 13, 1917, at 222 E. Chestnut Street, Clarinda, Page County, Iowa, to Glenn Meredith Whitmore and Mabel (Harris) Whitmore. Mabel Harris’s grandmother, Sarah (Wright) Harris, was a sister of Bishop Milton Wright, father of Wilbur and Orville Wright.
Joyce grew up in Page County, Iowa, as the eldest of Glenn and Mabel’s five children. Sometime between 1935 and 1940, the family moved to Delta County, Colorado.
During her junior year at the College of Idaho in Caldwell (just outside Boise), Joyce completed the Civilian Pilot Training Program, earning her private pilot’s license in the spring of 1940. She was the only female in the class of 10, which was trained by John B. Vickers of Vickers’ Flying School in Caldwell.
Joyce later taught flying to young men heading off to serve in World War II and taught ground school in the Los Angeles area. She was actively involved in aviation throughout her life, including being a member of the “Ninety-Nines” and participating in air races (as late as the 1970s).
The “Flying Heels” (from MS-456)
Joyce was married twice: first, about 1946, to a man by the last name of Park, and later in 1965 to Victor C. Jones. Joyce died October 14, 2002, just 1 day after her 85th birthday, in the Los Angeles area, and was buried in Boulder, Colorado.
For more information about this collection, including a detailed box and file listing, please review the MS-456: Joyce Whitmore Aviation Scrapbook finding aid.
Page from Joyce Whitmore scrapbook (MS-456)