She was not a Cherokee woman who succeeded despite her background.

She was a Cherokee woman who succeeded partly because of it.

The Scale Of A Life, Measured In Flight

She was born in 1908.

The year before her birth, the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight that lasted more than thirty minutes.

The year of her birth, the first military contracts for powered aircraft were being signed.

Aviation was so new that most people alive had never seen an airplane.

By the time she was ten years old, World War I had demonstrated that aircraft could change the course of battles.