I read with interest two recent stories in the Times-Picayune. The first was titled "Service Women Get Own Monument." The monument is located at the entrance of Arlington Cemetery and the dedication was attended by a great number of service women and veterans of wars, some going back to WW I. Frieda Hardin summarized the change in a woman's status in these words: "When I served in the Navy women were not even allowed to vote. Now women occupy important offices. In my 101 years of living, I have observed many wonderful achievements but none as meaningful as ... women...taking their rightful place in society."
The second story informed us that the Marine's first female striker pilot is from Meridian Mississippi. These two events took me back in memory to a high school girl at Randlett, OK. In those days classes were small and everyone knew everyone else on a kissing cousin basis.
Jewel Pfeifer was a classmate, petite, with curly black hair, intelligent blue eyes, and a ready smile. I remember her as one who could draw pictures of her classmates and teachers that were remarkably real and her caricatures were downright funny.
Many years later, during WW II, I heard that she had joined the U.S. Air force. The army had just established the Women's Air force Service Pilots (WASP's) which was set up to make use of women pilots. They ferried planes and participated in turning raw male recruits into skilled pilots. In spite of the fact that their record was exceptional, the program was canceled before the war ended, probably because it was specifically for women. Jewel had joined and completed her training in the last class and never got to serve. She was deeply disappointed but refused to let the dream die. In compensation for her loss and, as a memorial to the considerable contribution of women in the military, Jewel sculptured three bronze statutes.
The first statue was placed in the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas and was dedicated by astronaut Neil Armstrong.
The second is located in Sweetwater where the WASP's training center was located in the 1940's.
The third statue is a life-size figure of a young woman in military uniform stepping forward and looking upward with a parachute on her back. It stands in the library of the Texas Women's University, Denton, Texas.
We can all take pleasure in the rights that women have only recently achieved and we can also look forward to the day when no one is limited in what they can contribute because of sex, age. race, or religion. While the advances of women in all fields has been rapid and dramatic, they can never compare to the role of wife and mother. This is because the homes of our nation are the source of our greatness and what our nation is all about. For example, Jewel married Tom Estes over half a century ago and filled the traditional role of wife and mother as admirably as she used her artistic genius to commemorate women in the military.
©Copyright 1998 Dr. Stanley Watson and VideComp, Inc.
Other columns by Dr.
Watson...
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace..." Isaiah 52:7.