Fay Gillis Wells

On September 1, 1929, she became one of the first women pilots to become a member of the Caterpillar Club, bailing out of an airplane to save her life when her plane disintegrated during aerobatics over Long Island.

She also handled the logistics in Russia for famed aviator Wiley Post's solo round-the-world flight in 1933, and was The New York Times' correspondent at the coronation of Emperor Pu Yi of Manchukuo in 1934.

[12] After covering Hollywood for the Herald Tribune in 1936, she and her husband pioneered overseas radio broadcasts from Latin America in 1938 for The Magic Key of RCA.

Returning to the states after the birth of her son Linton II in Luanda in 1946, she was a full-time mother, living for a time on a houseboat.

She was the first female broadcaster accredited to the White House, and one of three women reporters chosen to accompany President Nixon to China in 1972.

In 1976, during the Bicentennial year, this led to the creation of the International Forest of Friendship in Atchison, Kansas, Amelia Earhart's home town.

From 1976 she served as Co-General Chairman for the annual ceremonies at the Forest, and was actively planning future events at the time of her death.

[19] Hospitalized in Falls Church, Virginia with pneumonia for six days during late November 2002, Wells died there from complications related to the disease on December 2, 2002.