Stinson, Katherine, 1891-1977

Katherine Stinson (born February 14, 1891, Fort Payne, Alabama – died July 8, 1977, Santa Fe, New Mexico) was an American aviation pioneer who, in 1912, became the fourth woman in the United States to earn the FAI pilot certificate. She set flying records for aerobatic maneuvers, distance, and endurance. She was the first female pilot employed by the U.S. Postal Service and the first civilian pilot to fly the mail in Canada. She was also one of the first pilots to ever fly at night and the first female pilot to fly in Canada and Japan ...

The weather and wartime conditions in Europe affected her health, and she came down with tuberculosis. Returning from the war, she went to the New York Sanitarium and then to the dry climate of New Mexico in 1920 to help combat the disease. Stinson's tuberculosis diminished after four years. In 1927, Stinson married ex-army aviator Miguel Antonio Otero Jr., a district judge and son of the former territorial governor of New Mexico. They raised four adopted children. Stinson worked as an award winning architect and Pueblo style home designer for many years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of the houses she designed belonged to anthropologist Sallie Wagner in the 1970s ...