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Above: Rosa Lea Fuliwood Meek Dickerson stands in front of a P51-D Mustang in the 1940s. Below:
Dickerson, at her Kerrville home on Wednesday, finds herself in her flight school graduation photo.
Story by Louise Kohl Leahy
Times Staff Writer
Photo by Jack Parker
Times Staff Photographer
osa Lea Fullwood
Meek Dickerson is a
soft-spoken, charming
woman who looks like
everyone's idea of the
perfect grandmother
"My life has been an
adventure since the very day
I was born," she said
9 recently.
U If anything, she was
understating the case.
1 Dickerson took her first
plane ride at 3 months old,
r in her mother's lap. Her
father, Walter "Pop"
Fulwood, also was along for
the ride in a WWI "Jenny,"
piloted by a veteran of that
war.
She didn't stay in the
passenger's seat for long.
She learned to fly at her
father's flying school by the
time she was 12; she had a
private pilot's license by the
time she was 16 and a
commercial license at 18 -
all the while wearing a dress
like any other proper young
lady of the time.
Dickerson pointed to a
newspaper clipping with a
picture of her in a plane
cockpit after she received
her commercial license.
"Women in the (Rio
xc Grande) Valley weren't
x allowed to wear pants," she
,q said. "When the newspaper
a photographer came out, he
was surprised: 'Where are
your jodhpurs? Where's your
white scarf?" She laughed.
Sure enough, there she is
in the photograph in an
attractive patterned dress.
Until she joined up as a
Women's Air Force Service
i Pilot, Dickerson worked at
her father's flying school and
airfield in McAllen, which
was the beginning of what is
now McAllen-Miller
* International Airport.
"I gassed planes, did the
books, ran the teletype, and
High
figer
Octogenarian spent six
decades in the air, including
a wartime stint as a WASP
L4
whenever there weren't any
students, I got in some more
air time," she said.
Because of that teletype,
Dickerson was the first
person in the Rio Grande
Valley to hear about the
bombing of Pearl Harbor.
"I was in the office at the
air field, about 6 a.m. It
came over on the weather
teletype," she said. "I called
Bryant Smith, our leading
newspaperman in McAllen,
and told him the Japanese
had bombed Pearl Harbor.
'You're pulling my leg; he
said and hung up. Well, of
course, I called back. He
took advantage of that
opportunity of being the first
to get the news out in the
whole valley."
Dickerson started training
for the WASP at Jacqueline
Cochran's Military Flight
Training School, Avenger
Field, Sweetwater, in
February 1943. All of the
women accepted for training
already had pilot'slicenses.
"2,000 women were
accepted," she said. "The
physicals were really tough. I
had to eat bananas and
drink milk to weigh in."
She grins.
"I think it was the
commercial licenses and the
280 hours' flight time that
got me in," she said.
Dickerson and most of her
classmates were assigned to
ferry commands in the U.S.,
flying planes from place to
place for the military. She
flew "just about every plane
they had," including the C-
45 and C-47, PT-19, P'T-13, A-
24 and UC-78, before being
sent to pursuit school to
learn to fly fighter planes.
"When I saw my name
down for pursuit school,"
Dickerson said, "I went to
my CO and told her I didn't
want to go. I said, I
promised my father I
wouldn't go because he told
me that if one of those
engines quits on take-off, it
goes down like a ton of
bricks: My CO, Dophine
Bohne, gave me two choices.
Either go to pursuit school in
Harlingen or go to Hondo
and tow targets."
"Towing targets" meant
pulling a target behind a
plane for anti-aircraft
students.
See FLYER, page 6C
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