Rose Lok (1912–1978) was the first female Chinese-American pilot in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

Early life

Lok was born in 1912 in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Lok emigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child. She grew up on Tyler Street in Boston, near Denison House, where

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...

was a social worker in the 1920s. At 18, Lok took up flying. Earhart may have inspired Lok to take up flying.

Career

The Chinese Patriotic Flying Corps was formed in the early 1930s to assist China in its defense against Japanese aggression. The pilots were all trained at East Boston Airport (later

Logan Airport General Edward Lawrence Logan International Airport , also known as Boston Logan International Airport and commonly as Boston Logan, Logan Airport or simply Logan, is an international airport that is located mostly in East Boston and partially ...

) by Francis P. Kendall of the

Curtiss-Wright The Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a manufacturer and services provider headquartered in Davidson, North Carolina, with factories and operations in and outside the United States. Created in 1929 from the consolidation of Curtiss, Wright, and v ...

Flying Service. Local Chinese-American merchants sponsored the group and bought them an airplane, a "

Curtiss Fledgling The Curtiss Fledgling, known internally to Curtiss as the Model 48 and Model 51 was a trainer aircraft developed for the United States Navy in the late 1920s and known in that service as the N2C. Design and development The Fledgling was designe ...

", emblazoned with the Chinese flag and the name of the organization in English and Chinese. Lok joined the corps in 1932. She obtained her pilot's license from the U.S. Department of Commerce that same year. As the only female flyer in the group, Lok became a local celebrity and made national headlines. A ''Boston Globe'' reporter writing about her first solo flight in May 1932 referred to her as "a winsome Chinese maid". On June 12, 1932, at a Chinatown celebration honoring the flyers, Lok gave a "stirring address on the need of airplanes in China with Chinese pilots". In 1933 she was mentioned in the ''Ninety-Niner'' (journal of the

Ninety-Nines The Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots, also known as The 99s, is an international organization that provides networking, mentoring, and flight scholarship opportunities to recreational and professional female pilots. Foun ...

, an international group of women pilots) along with

Hazel Ying Lee Hazel Ying Lee (; August 24, 1912 – November 25, 1944) was an American pilot who flew for the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II. Early life Lee was born in Portland, Oregon. Her parents were Yuet Lee and Ssiu Lan Wong, f ...

and Katherine Sui Fun Cheung. Lok was one of a handful of Chinese-American women who earned their pilot's licenses during the 1930s, along with

Leah Hing Leah Hing (1907–2001) was the first Chinese American woman to earn her pilot's license. Trained by Tex Rankin, an early aviation pioneer at Pearson Field in Vancouver, Washington, she received her pilot's license in 1934. Later she became ...

Hilda Yen Hilda Yank Sing Yen () or sometimes Yan, was one of the leading figures of Chinese American society for some decades. Coming from a high-profile family traditionally serving Chinese governments and society, she left the East while continuing to be ...

, and

Lee Ya-Ching Li Xiaqing or Lee Ya-Ching (; 16 April 1912 – 28 January 1998), also known by her stage name Li Dandan (), was a Chinese film actress, pioneering aviator, and philanthropist. She was the first Chinese woman to be granted a civil aviation licen ...

. She was the first female Chinese-American pilot in New England, and the first to solo at Logan Airport. She was memorialized by the

with a tree at the

International Forest of Friendship The International Forest of Friendship is an arboretum and memorial forest beside Lake Warnock in Atchison, Kansas. It is a memorial to the men and women involved in aviation and space exploration, and open to the public daily. The forest was star ...

, and is remembered on the

Boston Women's Heritage Trail The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating w ...

Personal life

Rose Lok married Edward N. Jung in Boston in 1935. She died on May 22, 1978, and left behind one daughter, Loraine. Her final resting place is at

Pacific View Memorial Park Pacific View Memorial Park is a cemetery located in the Corona del Mar neighborhood of Newport Beach, in Orange County, California. It first opened in 1958, and is known as the final resting place of Academy Award winning actor John Wayne and bas ...

Corona del Mar, Newport Beach Corona del Mar (Spanish for "Crown of the Sea") is a seaside neighborhood in the city of Newport Beach, California. It generally consists of all the land on the seaward face of the San Joaquin Hills south of Avocado Avenue to the city limits, as ...

, California.

References

External links

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Additional References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lok, Rose 1912 births 1978 deaths Date of death unknown People from Boston American women aviators American aviators of Chinese descent Burials at Pacific View Memorial Park 20th-century American women Chinese emigrants to the United States