Francie E. Meisner Park
July 25, 1919 – February 10, 2002
Class: 44-W-10
Training Location: Avenger Field (Sweetwater, Tex.)
Assigned Bases: Goodfellow Army Air Field (San Angelo, Tex.)
Planes flown: PT-17, BT-13, AT-6, PT-19
Francie was born in 1919 to Fred and Callie (Shirtcliff) Meisner in Piper, Kansas. After graduating from Spring Hills, KS High School in 1937, she joined KCKN Radio and retired from Jackson County MO Personnel in 1992. She was a Link instrument instructor and one of 1074 Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) from WWII. They were the first women US Military Army Air Corps pilots, Sept 1942 – Dec. 20, 1944.
They flew all planes in the inventory, 60 million miles at 134 bases. She was CAA 202746 CIFI (Certified Instrument Flight Instructor), 1945-1947 and 1970-1975 in both Kansas Cities KS and MO, Marshall MO and Stephens College, Columbia MO. She married pilot John Russell Park in 1947. She is included in 3 books: Martin Bowman’s “Handbook of U.S. Air Forces 1939-1945” and “Stearman”; and Marjorie H. Roberts’ “Wingtip to Wingtip” for Junior High School readers. She was a member of historical societies: American Aviation, Stearman, Jackson County and Westport MO; Creation Science, MO and Origins Science, AZ; Mesa Genealogy; Civil War Roundtables of Western MO and Scottsdale AZ; Women Military Aviators; and American Legion Post 26, Mesa AZ.
Sources:
Texas Women’s University in Denton, Texas, WASP Collection
Wings Across America
