Matilde moisant biography of george

Aviation pioneer who was the second American woman to receive a pilot's license and a partner of her brothers Alfred and John in the Moisants' airfield, flight school, plane factory and air circus.Name variations: Tudy, Tillie.

Pronunciations: MOY-sant or MWAH-zawnt. Born Matilde Josephine Moisant on a farm near Manteno, Illinois, around 1877 or 1878; died in La Crescenta, California, in 1964; daughter of Medore Moisant and Josephine (Fortier) Moisant; attended public high school in Alameda, California; never married; no children.

Awards:

Rodman Wanamaker Trophy (altitude record for women, September 24, 1911).

Spent childhood with French-Canadian immigrant parents on several farms in southern Illinois; on the death of her father, moved to Alameda, California, with her mother and six siblings (1887); departed Alameda for a sugar plantation owned by her oldest brother Alfred in Sonsonate, El Salvador (1909); left El Salvador for New York C