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Neta Snook

Wanted to learn to fly from watching balloon ascensions at county fairs in Iowa.

Wanted to attend Atlantic Coast Aeronautical Station aviation school run by Curtiss in Newport News, Va. but was turned down in 1916 because she was female.

Summer of 1917 entered Davenport School of Aviation; helped build an airplane for the school; first flight July 21, 1917, in that airplane with instructor Louis Boudor; helped handle controls; Sept 9 - school closed after bad accident which killed new pres. and injured Boudor.

Accepted by Curtiss school in Newport News same month; didn't have enough money to get there, so tried to hop freight trains; was helped by railroad workers & arrived Oct. 5; Eddie Stinson also [[strikethrough]] pupil [[/strikethrough]] there, and he taught her aerobatics; met T.S. Baldwin aviator and balloonist while there, who had been her hero.

School closed for security reasons because of the war [[strikethrough]]as WWI got closer [[/strikethrough]], and she went to another Curtiss school in Miami, Jan. 1918; met Glenn Curtiss, who still didn't believe in women flying, soon gov. ordered no civilian flying