Flygirl

At home, Ida, her mother, Grandy, and Abel hear on the radio that Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor. The next morning, Ida’s older brother Thomas returns home. He is a medical student in Nashville but is taking a leave of absence after hearing the news. At home, Thomas announces that he has decided to enlist. He tells Ida that it is up to her to take care of the family while he is overseas.

Ida remembers the day her father died. Thomas and her father were working in the fields, when the tractor flipped over on top of her father. Thomas ran to get the doctor as Ida and her mother ran out to the tractor. Ida thinks of her brother's motivations: “[H]e is learning to be a doctor so he will never have to run three miles for one again” (17).

Grandy tells Thomas to try to get an officer’s job: “A half-schooled doctor is better than no doctor at all” (17). As Ida tucks Abel into bed, she realizes that her dream of going to Chicago will have to wait.

The novel jumps forward to August 1943. Thomas has been gone for more than a year and a half. He has been stationed as a medic for an infantry of black soldiers in the South Pacific. The government has issued ration books, and Ida’s family is doing what they can to contribute to the war effort, such as donating bacon grease and spare rubber. At the Wilson house, Mrs. Wilson gives Jolene and Ida her ration books and asks them to get her some sugar. As they walk to the store, Ida tells Jolene about the letters she’s been receiving from Thomas: “[I]t seems silly. Thomas has men dying on his stretchers every day, and we sit here hoarding sugar and saving rubber, like that’s gonna make a difference” (25). Ida mentions that there are women working as nurses and radio operators, but Jolene says she is happy staying at home: “Men do the fighting, Ida Mae. Women take care of the home. You can be proud of that. It’s enough” (26). Jolene then tells Ida that she heard that Danny Taylor enlisted and is headed to France. Jolene wishes she had been nicer to Danny last time she saw him.

As Ida puts Abel to bed that night, he gives her a newspaper clipping. The article calls for women pilots to join an army program called the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP, founded by Jackie Cochran, a celebrated female pilot.

Ida remembers how her father first became a pilot when she was 11 years old. He decided he wanted a crop duster plane for the farm and went up to Chicago to get his pilot’s license. While he was gone, Grandy came to live with the family. Ida’s father returned home with a Curtiss JN-4, or a "Jenny,"the same plane the family still owns. He taught Ida how to fly, and after he died, she continued the crop-dusting work. Ida thought the war had put an end to her dreams of becoming a pilot, but now she thinks she can fly for the U.S. Army.