Eleanor J. Patterson Brady
July 6, 1924 – April 8, 1963
Class 44-W-2
Planes flown: PT-17, BT-13, AT-6, B-17, B-24, C-47, C-53
Assigned bases:
Dodge City Army Air Base (Kan.)
Gowen Army Air Base (Boise, Idaho)
Smoky Hill Army Air Base (Salina, Kansas)
Eleanor was born on July 6, 1924 in Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota to Wright F. and Josephine (Jones) Patterson and an older brother, Wright H. She was intelligent and adventurous, graduating from Washburn HS as valedictorian. She learned to fly and joined the WASPS at 17 (minimum age 21.) Training was at Avenger Airfield in Sweetwater, Texas. Then was stationed at Gowen Airfield, Gowen, Iowa then at Smoky Hills Airfield in Salina, Kansas. Along the way she met Willis Edwin Brady, who was in the Army Air Force as a radar navigator on bombers. A wartime romance ensued and love blossomed. They married and had five children, four survivors.
