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Sharpie: The Life Story of Evelyn Sharp, Nebraska’s Aviatrix
A move to the Nebraska Sandhills and an itinerant flight instructor's overdue room and board bill put her in the front seat of an Alexander Flyabout. She is a "natural," earning her private, commercial, and instructor's ratings by age 20. Sharpie is the biography of an early Nebraska barnstorming pilot who became one of the first women to ferry US Army Air Force fighters during World War II. It is the life story of a remarkable woman who gave her life for her country.
Book Description from Amazon.com
As the powerful P-38 lifted off the runway at New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, on April 3, 1944, the pilot, Evelyn Sharp, knew she was in trouble. She did not need to see the black smoke belching from the pursuit's left engine. Her cockpit instruments told her all she needed to know. With not enough altitude, nor engine performance to gain that altitude, a twenty-four-year-old barnstorming pilot from Nebraska set the Army Air Forces state-of-the-art fighter down on a grassy knoll near a wooded ravine.
In the throes of the Great Depression, amidst the red dust and grasshoppers borne by a wind from the Oklahoma Panhandle, a young girl named Evelyn Sharp grew up in the north central region of the Nebraska Sandhills. It was there she assimilated the values of perseverance and commitment, and acquired a sense of adventure which would clearly define her character. Evelyn would not settle for the security of a loving husband and home. She wanted to fly.
Excerpts from the Back Cover
Sharpie was a very special person, and I am absolutely fascinated with her life. Although the book reads like fiction, the writing is a masterful work of historical research. Diane Ruth Armour Bartels has insightfully captured the love, warmth and spirit which epitomize my very good friend.
- Teresa James, Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron.
The residents of Valley County, Nebraska, have waited some fifty years for a writer to pen the biography of their hometown heroine. Their dream is at last a reality. Bartels has honestly and eloquently portrayed the human history of a place, its people, and a time.
- Heloise Christensen Bresley, Valley County Historical Society).
I'm looking forward to reading this then placing it between Simbeck's "Daughter of the Air" and "Memories" by Marge Bong Drucker.
- Daniel S, New Mexico.
Read "Nebraska's Aviatrix Evelyn Sharp barnstormed Golden Plains" an article from from the McCook Daily Gazette, June 23, 2006.
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