Margery Taylor Ware, who flew as a WASP during World War II, died Nov. 22 of renal failure at the age of 91.
Ever a fighter, she stood up against sex discrimination, bigotry, poverty and violence all of her long life.
Her father, an Episcopal minister, told her that to whom much is given, much is expected, and she took it to heart. He also taught her how to use hand tools.
She and her husband Robert, who followed her in death by three days, later built their own house in Bethesda, Maryland.
Ware learned to fly in 1941, while teaching at the Western College for Women in Ohio. When World War II started she wanted to be a fighter pilot. As women were not allowed to fly in combat, she joined the WASP instead. After training at Sweetwater, Texas, she was assigned to the Air Transport Command’s ferrying operation at Love Field, Dallas, and flew more than a dozen aircraft types ranging from Aeronca liaison planes and Waco biplanes to P-39s and C-47s. She flew 52 transport missions in all.
She moved to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., in 1945 to teach at George Washington University, meeting her husband-to-be at a Library of Congress lecture. The two of them became heavily involved in politics and social issues, for which she was better known in Washington than for her flying.