Veterans' Day Program at Burnhaven Library

A Minnesota History Player will dramatize the life of Virginia Mae Hope, a Women Air Force Service Pilot during World War II, at 7:00 in the Community Room at the Burnhaven Library.

Virginia Mae Hope was born in Winnebago, Minnesota in 1921. She grew up on a family farm during the Great Depression.  While attending Northwestern University in
Evanston, Illinois, Virginia enrolled in the government sponsored civilian pilot training program (CPT).  In 1941,
the year Pearl Harbor was bombed, Virginia obtained her private and commercial pilot licenses; she was twenty years old.  She went to work at a Minneapolis airport as an air traffic controller, hired because there were not enough men left to fill the positions.  But Virginia wanted to do
even more for the war effort.  In May 1943 she was accepted into the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and spent six months at their training camp in Sweetwater, Texas. The WASP was part of the Army Air Forces’ World War II civilian pilot recruitment program, created to help the war effort by freeing military pilots for combat duty.  She graduated, “earning her silver wings” on November 13, 1943.

The WASP, under the direction of famed pilot Jackie Cochran, logged 60 million air miles. They ran supplies, transported medical patients and military personnel, and towed aerial gunnery targets. After graduation Virginia was assigned to the Army Air Forces Weather Wing, at Patterson Field, Ohio. Her job was to fly Weather Service personnel and planes on military missions.

Virginia’s story is part of Dakota County Library’s annual Minnesota Mosaic® series, sponsored by The Dakota County Library Foundation, and also funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.  All Minnesota Mosaic® programs are free and open to all ages.