The ironic thing, if I recall correctly: when she first decided to fly around the world, she was just going to do it for her own pleasure, not realizing no woman had yet made the trip solo.
Her book was put back into print and worth a read:
http://www.38charlie.com
Ah - this is where I read that: "Eventually, Jerrie began taking flying lessons while the boys were at school. After she and Russ each earned pilot licenses, they became half owners of a four-seat Cessna 180 and alternated piloting the plane for weekend and business trips.Yet Jerrie Mock always felt she was supposed to do more. Something special. In 1962, she entered a women’s air race, for which she was insured throughout the Western Hemisphere. To take advantage of the insurance, she and Russ flew to an island off the Canadian coast, where from the hotel radio room she could hear pilots communicating their positions over the Atlantic. “I thought,
My goodness, I want to do this,” she says. “It was exciting.”
One night at the dinner table, not long after the trip, Mock complained to her husband that she was bored of staying at home all day. She wanted to go somewhere. “Maybe you should get in your plane and just fly around the world,” Mock’s husband said jokingly, dismissively.
“All right,” she responded, entirely serious. “I will.”
With her family’s encouragement, Mock called the National Aeronautic Association, just hoping to obtain maps for an around-the-world trip, and learned no other woman had completed the flight. (Wiley Post set the men’s record in 1933, four years before Earhart’s attempt.)"
Full story here:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyksaunder...e-first-woman-to-fly-around-the-world#43y2bjg
