Mary Goodrich Jenson
Mary Goodrich Jenson (November 6, 1907 – January 4, 2004) was an early woman aviator and journalist who became the first woman in Connecticut to earn a pilot's license and the first woman to fly solo to Cuba. She was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame in 2000. Education and personal life Mary Goodrich was born in Hartford, Connecticut on November 6, 1907, to Ella E. (Reed) Goodrich and James Raymond Goodrich. Her grandfather Elizur Stillman Goodrich ran the Hartford–New York Steamboat Company and the Hartford–Wethersfield Horse Railway. She attended the Collegio Gazzola in Verona, Italy, and Gibbs College before moving on to Columbia University. In 1940, she married Carl D. Jenson, with whom she had two children. Career as pilot and journalist Jenson earned her pilot's license in 1927, at the age of 20, thereby becoming the first woman in Connecticut to achieve that milestone. While she was still training for her pilot's license, she also pursued a career in journalism. The Hartford Courant hired her as its first aviation editor on condition that she obtain her pilot's license before a rival reporter for the Hartford Times, which she did. She would later become the first woman