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“Someday, perhaps the government may use us.”
Those words, spoken by twenty-four-year-old Margaret Stoddard confirmed the SSHS graduate’s personal commitment to the war effort. She spoke them on June 8, 1942 after her solo airplane flight just six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Earning her seaplane wings with a mere eight hours of instruction, Margaret would become the first woman pilot to be licensed in Saratoga County. She would later serve as a volunteer aviator during World War II by flying reconnaissance missions in the newly formed Civil Air Patrol and by shuttling military aircraft at the request of the Armed Forces.
Margaret’s war time service was recognized seventy-six years later when family members gathered on April 28, 2018 in Lake George, New York for the New York Wing of the Civil Air Patrol’s annual conference. Margaret (Stoddard) Perkins was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for her extraordinary volunteer service with other war time members of the Civil Air Patrol. The medal, which Congress authorized in 2014 for World War II volunteers of the Civil Air Patrol, represents the Nation’s highest civilian honor. The family will donate Margaret’s Congressional Gold Medal for permanent display to Skidmore College where Margaret was a member of the Class of 1946.
According to her family members, proving war time Civil Air Patrol service and Congressional Gold Medal eligibility are no easy task. All the Civil Air Patrol’s national personnel records from that era had been destroyed years ago. Volunteers or their families are therefore required to verify their war time service through other evidence, such as log books, photographs, or duty rosters. In Margaret’s case, the Federal Aeronautics Administration, the successor to the CAA, first claimed they had no record of her licensure in their database. When an FAA official was contacted and expressed doubt whether Margaret was ever really a pilot, her son, Scott, a local attorney, replied “I think I can address that issue fairly quickly. I am holding my mom’s original paper Airman’s Certificate from 1943.”
One month later, thirty-one pages of Margaret’s various applications, licenses, commercial license test results, rating records, flight test reports, photographs, fingerprints, and flight hours arrived in Saratoga Springs. When a war time photograph of Margaret in the cockpit of an Aeronca Chief aircraft and a 1949 newspaper article acknowledging her service as a pilot during the war with the Civil Air Patrol surfaced, her Congressional Gold Medal eligibility was confirmed.
Margaret’s love for flying first began in 1924 when, at six years of age and before Charles Lindberg ever made his historic transatlantic flight, she flew as a passenger in an open-cockpit biplane with a Saratoga Springs barnstormer. Ignoring critics who felt that a woman’s place was not at the controls of an aircraft, she eventually pursued her dream of gaining an “Airman’s Certificate.”
Flight in those days without sophisticated instrumentation was not without its dangers. During the war, Margaret had at least one forced landing at a restricted Army airbase somewhere in New England. Lacking enough fuel for a proper approach, she performed an emergency slip landing on the grassy runway. She was promptly met at gunpoint by surprised soldiers who nevertheless expressed admiration for her piloting skills.
After the war, she eventually retired from flying, married former City Court Judge George F. Perkins, raised a family, and pursued a career as a registered dietitian. Margaret died in Saratoga Springs in 2000 after a short illness at age 83 years.
Margaret’s family remembers her not only as a skilled aviator but as one who instilled a sense that anything could be accomplished with perseverance. “She would always say that the most important word facing any difficult task or seemingly insurmountable problem was simply to ‘try,’ said her youngest son, Bob, a businessman now residing in Arizona. “She was daring in her aspirations and fearless in her pursuits. She expected her children to reach for the sky as well in all our endeavors,” he said. “She also taught us the privilege of volunteerism and service, but above all, she was an incredibly loving and giving mother. What an example she was for us kids.”
