Jackie Cochran was a pioneer aviator who achieved many “firsts.” Her humble upbringing didn’t hold her back in pursuing and achieving her goals in life. She was the first female pilot to participate in the 1937 Bendix racing competition and worked with Amelia Earhart to open the race to women. She was the first woman to break the sound barrier and the first to fly a jet plane across the ocean (Amelia Earhart was the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic). Jackie loved speed, and at the time of her death, no pilot, man or woman, held more speed, distance or altitude records in aviation history than Jackie Cochran.

Her love of flying and racing airplanes opened doors of opportunity that I’m sure she would never have envisioned. While the Nazi’s were attempting to carry out their plans for world domination during WWII, Jackie Cochran saw an opportunity to support the military by training women to fly and ferry planes overseas so that more men would be free to fly in combat missions. Her vision ultimately led to the creation of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program (better known as the WASPs).

Jackie Cochran’s life exemplifies the Sisterhood Of Servants vision to motivate and encourage women today and the generations to follow to live with a desire to serve others and willingness to implement plans of action that meet the practical needs of those in their circle of influence.

"...flex your mental muscles and get cracking under your own power. Derive emotional satisfaction from a good try and then another and another and still another if the first ones fail… If you will open up your power plants of vitality and energy, clean up your spark plugs of ambition and desires, and pour in the fuel of work and still more work, you will be likely to go places and do things.The formula for success has many components. There is never precisely the same mixture. A drop of luck can substitute for a dash of opportunity. But in every well-blended recipe for success will be found, in addition to honesty and as main ingredients, determination and tenacity and a substantial portion of skill and experience which come with trying. There will also be found imagination and faith which will bring the other elements together as a potent whole.” ~Jackie Cochran

Click the links below to read more about her colorful and courageous life:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/cochran/EX25.htm
http://waspmuseum.org/jackie-cochran-biography/
http://www.wingsacrossamerica.us/wasp/jacqueline_cochran.htm
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero/women_aviators/jackie_cochran.htm

Our Week 3, M.A.D profile is about Clara Barton, Civil War volunteer and American Red Cross founder. Her courage and steadfastness will inspire you:

Clarissa (Clara) Harlowe Barton was born December 25, 1821, in North Oxford, Massachusetts. Clara was the youngest of five children, and her two brothers and two sisters assumed much of the responsibility for her education. Her sister, Dorothy, taught her spelling, Stephen taught her arithmetic, Sally taught her geography, and David coached her in athletics. With their help, Barton received a vast and diverse education. By the time she started school at age 4, Barton could already spell three-syllable words. She found school to be quite easy and studied such subjects as philosophy, chemistry, and Latin. Her instinctual gift of nursing started at the young age of 11 when she nursed her brother David through a serious illness resulting from a fall.

The teenage Clara was very shy but also well spoken and well read. Her mother suggested that she put her gifts to work by becoming a teacher. At age fifteen Clara began teaching at nearby schools. In 1850 she left to teach at Bordentown, New Jersey. Families in Bordentown were required to pay for children's schooling. Thus many children were unable to attend. Barton offered to teach without salary if children could attend for free. She later took pride in having established the first free school in New Jersey and in having raised enrollment from six to six hundred. However, when town officials decided to appoint a male principal over her, she resigned.

Following a period of physical and emotional exhaustion, Barton moved to Washington DC, where she worked as a clerk in the U.S Patent Office. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Clara resigned from the Patent Office to work as a volunteer. She advertised for supplies and distributed bandages, socks, and other goods to help the wounded soldiers. In 1862, she was granted permission to deliver supplies directly to the front, which she did without fail for the next two years. Her contribution was primarily not as a nurse, though she did nursing as needed when she was present at a hospital or battlefield. Rather, she was an organizer of supply delivery, arriving at battlefields and hospitals with wagons of sanitary supplies. She also worked to identify the dead and wounded, so that families could know what happened to their loved ones. Though a supporter of the Union, in serving wounded soldiers, she served both sides in providing neutral relief. She became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield." In 1864, Clara was given the position of superintendent of Union nurses. After the war, she received permission from President Lincoln to begin a letter-writing campaign to search for missing soldiers.

In the years following the war, Clara lectured about her war experiences and continued her work at the Office of Correspondence. However, by 1869, she had worked herself into a physical breakdown. She followed her doctor's orders and traveled to Europe to rest and regain her health. It was during this trip that she learned about the Treaty of Geneva, which provided relief for sick and wounded soldiers and permitted medical personnel to be treated as neutral parties who could aid the sick and wounded during military conflicts. Twelve nations had signed the treaty, but the United States had refused. Clara vowed to look into the matter.

Upon her return to the United States, Clara settled in Danville, New York. In 1877 she wrote to a founder of the International Red Cross and offered to lead an American branch of the organization. Thus, at age fifty-six she began a new career. The American Red Cross was devoted to helping people in need during peacetime as well as wartime. Clara Barton served as its first president. A year later her extraordinary efforts brought about U.S. agreement to the Geneva Convention. After several years, Clara wrote the American amendment to the Red Cross constitution, which provided for disaster relief during peace time as well as war. Barton remained Red Cross president until 1904. During her tenure, she headed up relief work for disasters such as famines, floods, pestilence, and earthquakes in the United States and throughout the world. The last operation she personally directed was relief for victims of the Galveston, Texas flood in 1900. In addition, she served as an emissary of the Red Cross and addressed several International Conferences.

Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912. The mission of her life can be summed up in her own words, "You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it. I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past."
 

Sustained by her heart of selflessness and an extremely frugal lifestyle, Oseola McCarty was able to accomplish the extraordinary. After working seventy-six years washing and ironing other people’s clothing and saving as much of her meager income as possible, Ms. McCarty donated one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the University of Southern Mississippi in 1995 to be distributed through a scholarship fund for financially needy students. She was eighty-seven years old when the fund was established.

Oseola McCarty was born in Wayne County, Mississippi, on March 7, 1908. She was an only child being raised by her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Even as a child of eight years old, Ms. McCarty understood the value of hard work. She would come home from school and iron clothes. She decided that when it was possible, she would save money to help take care of her grandmother. When Oseola was in the sixth grade, her aunt became ill. She had to drop out of school to care for her because her aunt didn’t have any other children. When her aunt recovered, all of Oseola’s classmates were far ahead of her in school, so she never returned. Instead, she stayed home and washed and ironed to help support her family.

The circle of sisterhood these four women enjoyed gradually began to diminish when her grandmother died in 1944. Her mother died in 1964 and her aunt in 1967. Ms. McCarty was left all alone. She never married and never had any children of her own. Her uncle gave her the house that she grew up in as a girl in 1947. She lived there until her death from liver cancer on September 26, 1999.

After her aunt died, Ms. McCarty began to think about what she should do with the little she had. She knew she had to make plans for her estate in the event of her own death. Her savings were beginning to accumulate and earn interest, so she decided to leave some of her money to her three cousins, some to her church, and the rest to the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). Ms. McCarty was referred to Paul Laughlin, assistant V.P. and trust officer of Trustmark Bank in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Mr. Laughlin explained the process of dividing her money by using ten dimes. Each dime would represent a percentage of her savings. Three pieces of paper were laid out on a table with the names of all the parties she wanted to give money written on them. The names of her cousins were on one piece, Friendship Baptist Church on another, and USM on the last. Ms. McCarty placed three dimes next to her cousins, one dime next to her church, and six dimes next to USM.

On July 26, 1995, an irrevocable trust was set up in the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be distributed by the University of Southern Mississippi. The business community of Hattiesburg and more than six hundred donors were so inspired by Ms. McCarty’s unselfish act that they added over three hundred thousand dollars to the original scholarship fund.

In my astonishment at the generosity of this extraordinary and humble woman, I almost overlooked the fact that $150,000.00 was only 60 percent of what Oseola McCarty had saved through the years. If my calculations are correct, her life savings totaled approximately two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The most amazing feat is she accumulated her savings by washing and ironing clothes. She didn’t have a high-paying job. Her hourly wage was menial at best. How then was she able to save so much? If she were still alive, Ms. McCarty would say that she never bought anything she didn’t need. She never bought anything she couldn’t afford, and once she put the money into her savings account, she never would take it out.

Oseola McCarty’s wisdom for living and giving is simple:

“There’s a lot of talk about self-esteem these days. It seems pretty basic to me. If you want to feel proud of yourself, you’ve got to do things you can be proud of. Feelings follow actions. I can’t do everything, but I can do something to help somebody. And what I can do I will do. I wish I could do more.”

These are truly profound words spoken by an obscure woman known to many in her hometown as simply “the washerwoman” who gave “the gift.” She never really knew what the word philanthropy meant, but her life represented selfless giving in the most extraordinary way.