Nellie Zabel Willhite
From Women Aviators
Eleanor 'Nellie' Zabel Willhite (November 22, 1892 - September 2, 1991) was a pioneer American aviatrix. She was the first South Dakotan woman to get a license, and also the first deaf woman to learn to fly.
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Childhood
Nellie was born in Box Elder, South Dakota. Her father, Charles Zabel, hauled freight for the Homestake Mining Company, over the Old Fort Pierre – Deadwood Trail. He owned two or three strings of oxen. Her mother was Lillian May Madison, sister of the area rancher and rodeo promoter in Rapid City, Russ Madison.
Charles and Lillian were married in Rapid City. Their first ranch was near Creston, they shortly established a larger rach at Box Elder, where Nellie was born. At the age of two, she contracted the measles, and as a result became deaf.
After her mother's early death, Nellie was sent to attend school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Marriage
It was in Sioux Falls that Nellie met and later married Dr. F.V. Willhite. This is also where she began working at an airfield as a typist-stenographer, and a friend - a flight instructor - suggested she learn how to fly.
Pilot
She took classes, and made her first solo flight on November 13, 1927, after 13 hours of instruction. She was 35 years old. She was only the 13th graduate of a Sioux Falls Flying School.
Her father, nicknamed "Pard", bought her an open-cockpit Alexander Eaglerock OX-5 biplane (the OX-5 referring to the type of engine it had, a Curtiss OX-5, 90 horsepower), which she named Pard in his honor. She barnstormed — participated in air shows, races, and county fairs, gave rides, performed aerial stunts, and just had a good time. High-spirited and indomitable, and inspired other deaf people to fly.
She once said: "Even though I could barely hear the engine roar, I could tell right away if anything was wrong - just from the vibrations." First Deaf Female Pilot
She worked with Amelia Earhart in planning the nation’s first women's flying derby from the West Coast to Cleveland, Ohio (the Powder Puff Derby).
Until 1944, she worked as a commercial pilot (the first and last deaf person to do so), carrying airmail.
She founded the South Dakota chapter of the Ninety-Nines.
Shortly before her death, she was inducted into the South Dakota Aviation Hall of Fame. The Pard is now on display at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Alabama (The Eaglerock is one of only five remaining models of this type).
