Jerrie Mock

Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock was born on November 22, 1925, in Newark, Ohio to Timothy and Blanche (Wright) Fredritz. 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. At OSU, she became a member of Phi Mu. She left her studies at OSU to wed her husband, Russell Mock, in 1945. ==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. 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. Mock was quite a spectacle in Saudi Arabia where women would not be allowed to drive cars until 2017, 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 ==

Firsts for women • First woman to fly both oceans • First woman to fly solo around the world • Induction into the National Aviation Hall of Fame (2022) • American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Special Award • Louis Blériot Silver Medal (from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale; she was the first American citizen and first woman to be awarded this) • Women’s Aero Association of Wichita Award September 14, 2013 was declared Jerrie Mock Day by an official proclamation from Newark, Ohio mayor Jeff Hall. 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." ==Death==

Mock died in her home in Quincy, Florida on September 30, 2014. Her ashes were flown in a Cessna 180. ==See also==