Flying Nun

Date

• ca. 1941-ca. 1943

Publisher

Manitowoc, Wisconsin: Manitowoc Herald-Times

Summary

• This undated World War II era clipping from the Manitowoc Herald-Times features a photograph and brief information about Sister Mary Aquinas Kinskey, known as "The Flying Nun." She is shown wearing her religious habit and holding a model airplane. Sister Mary Aquinas was a Franciscan nun whose mother house was Holy Family Convent in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. During the war she took flying lessons at the Manitowoc airport and became a licensed pilot, with the intention of teaching aerodynamics to high school students. She taught at St. Ambrose High School in Ironwood, Michigan and also became involved with pre-flight instruction for the military, which brought her national attention and later inspired a 1957 television play "The Pilot." After the war Sister Mary Aquinas taught aviation and aeronautics at Catholic University and worked to introduce aviation into high school curriculums in Wisconsin and elsewhere. In 1977 she retired at Holy Family Convent, where she died in 1985 at the age of 91.