Return flight

The first woman in Gage County to get her pilot's license returned to Beatrice on Saturday with a group of friends who also enjoy flying.

The women are members of a Wichita, Kan.-based chapter of the Ninety-Nines.

“Our organization was named after the original 99 women pilots who organized the group in 1929 in Long Island, N.Y.,” said Kay Alley of the Kansas Ninety-Nines. “Amelia Earhart was our first president.”

The women's pilot group has grown from the original 99 to about 7,500 members with chapters throughout the world.

Among the 18 members of the Kansas group to visit Beatrice Saturday afternoon was Marguerite Lawrence.

“I was the first woman to get a pilot's license in Gage County,” Lawrence said.

She said she recalled growing up in Beatrice, a member of the Sonderegger family, known for the Sonderegger Nurseries. Lawrence recalled playing in the trees at the nursery run by her grandfather and where her father worked as secretary and treasurer.

When the weather cooperated, Lawrence said a pilot used to fly down to Beatrice on Sundays. This was before Beatrice had an airport, and the pilot would land his plane in the open field where the Beatrice Municipal Airport now stands and give ground school lessons at the YMCA.

Eventually, the pilot started providing pilot training at Fairbury.

“There were 15 students and he had us all soloing in a month. I got my license in two months,” she said.

Lawrence said it was 1937 when she got her license.

Her career with aviation continued as she and her husband managed the airport in Fairbury for a number of years.

During World War II Lawrence was the only woman among a group of male pilots training for war. Alley said at the time the U.S. would have a woman train with the men preparing for war to disguise the group as civilians.

While Lawrence, who now lives in the Wichita, Kan., area, drove to Beatrice with her daughter for the visit, about six or seven planes flew into Beatrice Municipal Airport on Saturday.

“We just decided to do a weekend getaway and chose Beatrice,” Alley said.

Alley said a couple of group members were involved in an air race a couple of years ago and one of the stops was in Beatrice.

“They thought it would be a fun place to go back to,” Alley said.

The women spent Saturday afternoon and evening checking out museums and antique shops and touring the town before flying home on Sunday.