Ola Mildred Rexroat - brave pilot

Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat (August 28, 1917 – June 28, 2017) was born in Argonia, Kansas, in 1917. Her father was a white man who worked as a publisher and editor, and her mother was an Oglala-Lakota Indian who grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. While Millie's family moved from town to town as she was growing up, she spent plenty of time visiting her grandmother on the reservation in South Dakota. In 1932, she graduated from St. Mary's Indian High School for Girls in Springfield, South Dakota, but didn't have much of an idea of what she wanted to do with her life. Over the next few years she bounced around from location to location, and job to job, before finally settling down to complete her bachelor's degree in art from the University of New Mexico in 1939.

When the US finally entered World War II, Millie and her mother and sisters moved to Washington, DC, where they found work at the Army War College. But Millie wasn't content to spend the war working in an office. She wanted to do something more. At first she considered joining the Women's Army Corps (WAC), or maybe the United States Naval Reserve (WAVES), but when she learned of the WASPs, she was sure that was where she belonged.

Millie had no prior flying experience, but that didn't stop her. She found a local flight school that offered a series of lesson for only $8 an hour. After 35 hours of flying, she was qualified to apply. After graduating from training in Sweetwater, Texas, in 1944, she became the only Native American woman to serve in the WASPs. She was stationed at Eagle Pass Army Airfield where she took on the dangerous job of towing aerial gunnery targets to help new recruits learn to operate the big machinery.

"You didn't have time to be frightened or scared or anything like that. I was usually more concerned about my landings."

Sadly for Millie, the WASP program was disbanded later that same year. But she had found her place. Even if she wasn't able to fly, she could still work with other pilots. She joined the Air Force Reserves, where she was called into active duty during the Korean War, and later served for ten years as an air traffic controller.

For more information about her life and career, check out her bio on the Fly Girls series site.

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