INSELBERG o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-04-30 published
HUNT
Jessica (née
JARVIS) U.E. (1911-2005)
On April 16th, 2005 at Parkview Place, Enderby, British Columbia,
in her 94th year. Born August 26, 1911 in Toronto. Survived by
her daughter Diana (Alex)
INSELBERG,
Enderby,
British
Columbia
and her half-brother William Michael
JARVIS,
Ottawa.
Predeceased
by her brothers, Alfred Errol
JARVIS (1910 in infancy,) and Laurence
Ernest JARVIS (1992.) The daughter of William Henry Pope
JARVIS
and Mary Isabelle
(HOSKIN)
JARVIS,
Jessica attended Bishop Strachan
School, and University of Toronto, from which she graduated in
1942, standing first in Household Science. Jessica served in
the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service in Halifax during the
latter part of the Second World War. In 1945 she moved to Oakville,
Ontario, returning to live in Toronto in 1965. Jessica moved
to Nanaimo, British Columbia in 1988 and
to Enderby, British
Columbia in 2000 to be closer to her daughter and son-in-law.
In the 1930's, Jessica became the first woman in Toronto, and
the fourth in Canada, to obtain a commercial flying license.
She also earned Canadian, English, French and German private
pilot's licenses. The family wishes to profoundly thank the wonderful
staff at Parkview Place for the superb care she received over
the past five years. No service by request. Donations, in lieu
of flowers, may be made to the Shuswap Branch-British Columbia
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 5850 Auto Road
S.E., Salmon Arm, British Columbia V1E 2X2.
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INSELBERG o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2005-05-12 published
Jessica Jarvis
HUNT,
Aviatrix: 1911-2005
Toronto socialite was among the first women in Canada to win
a commercial pilot's licence but, sidelined by the Second World
War, never flew a plane again
By Allison
LAWLOR,
Special to The Globe and Mail, Thursday, May
12, 2005, Page S9
At a time when flying was considered a man's world, Jessica
JARVIS,
at the age of 23, became the first woman in Toronto, and the
fourth in Canada, to obtain a commercial flying licence.
Dubbed a "young aviatrix" by Canada's press of the mid-1930s,
she also went onto earn her Canadian, English, French and German
private pilot's licences. "I flew to do something to justify
my existence and to stand out from the crowd," she said years
later.
A member of the Toronto Flying Club, Ms.
JARVIS got her wings
on August 21, 1931, a little more than two years after Eileen
VOLLICK of Hamilton, Ontario, became the first woman in Canada
to receive her private pilot's licence. In an interview with
the Toronto Daily Star two years later, Ms.
JARVIS explained
why she thought a commercial pilot's licence would elude her.
"I can never have a commercial pilot's licence," she said, "because
my eyesight is not good enough. I wear specially ground glasses
in my helmet goggles, as it is. Commercial flying is out for
me, I'm afraid."
Even so, on August 23, 1934, she became the fourth woman in Canada
to qualify for her commercial licence. Still, she later said
that as a woman, she never expected to find work as a pilot,
even if her eyesight had been better.
"I took it to prove to myself that I could do it. I was always
realistic, and I didn't see any place in aviation for women,"
she told writer Shirley
RENDER for Ms.
RENDER's book No Place
for a Lady: The Story of Canadian Women Pilots 1928-1992 "I didn't
want to do anything except enjoy the experience."
Ms. JARVIS loved the experience of flying in open planes. "I'd
go up at 7: 30 or 8 a.m. in the summer," she recalled. "The air
was so still. The feeling of freedom -- it's incredibly exhilarating.
It's a very sensual experience."
The daughter of William Henry Pope
JARVIS and Mary Isabelle
JARVIS,
Jessica JARVIS was born into an affluent Toronto family. Her
father, a gentleman journalist, travelled to the North where
he took part in the Yukon Gold Rush and wrote several novels
based on his experiences.
Despite her privileged background, which included private schools
and the well-connected life of a young socialite, Ms.
JARVIS
described her childhood as lonely and unhappy. "I was very prim
and proper," she said in a newspaper interview in 1992. "But
at school I couldn't do anything -- I was no good at games. Learning
to fly was something I could do sitting down."
While lessons were expensive, money wasn't a problem for Ms.
JARVIS. By the time she was 18 she had set aside enough to enroll
in flying school at a cost of $20 an hour (about the cost in
1931 to rent an apartment for a month). "It was just something
I wanted to do," she said. "I had no lofty aims."
A photograph of Ms.
JARVIS, glamourously dressed in her flying
gear, graced the cover of Star Weekly in 1940. "Jessica
JARVIS,
University of Toronto student, is one of Canada's most experienced
women pilots. Royal Canadian Air Force say she is capable of
piloting their planes," said the caption.
"I do photograph well," she years later said of the publicity.
"She quite liked all the attention she got from her flying,"
said her daughter Diana
INSELBERG. "
She was interested in standing
out from the crowd."
In 1942, she graduated with a degree in household science from
the University of Toronto. She served as a dietician in the Women's
Royal Canadian Naval Service in Halifax during the Second World
War. She later said that she hadn't expected to fly with the
Royal Canadian Air Force during the war years due to her poor
eyesight.
in the meantime, flying had brought her close to death at least
once. "It was looping a loop that nearly did me in, in England,"
she said in an interview with the Toronto Daily Star in 1933.
"I did two loops and, in the second one I didn't pull the stick
back far enough. Instead of completing the loop I went out on
a vertical so that I was flying upside down. I caught my foot
in the side, I couldn't see, and I thought I was in a spin.
"In other words, I thought I was done for. But strange to say,
I wasn't scared. A man once told me that when you get in a jam
in the air you don't get scared because you are so busy watching
what happens.
"That's exactly what took place. In those few seconds, I seemed
to remember all the things I had ever been taught and, some way,
I pulled out of it. I had started at 2,000 feet and I ended at
Shortly after she landed, she recalled how a junior pilot set
down soon afterwards. "His face was white with fright. He said
he saw me shoot by, going about 165 miles an hour, and thought
I was headed straight for death," she said.
"However, it was absolutely my own fault," she added. "I have
no one to blame but myself for the whole affair. Most accidents
are the pilot's fault, unless there is a structural break."
During the war she had married a naval officer -- she took his
name, HUNT -- and they had one child. Unfortunately, the marriage
did not last and she found herself alone with a young daughter
to raise and no more money for flying. After the war, Ms. Jarvis
HUNT moved to Oakville, Ontario, where she ran a bakery and later
a second-hand clothing store before returning to Toronto to work
for the federal government.
She never took to the air again. Instead, money worries displaced
the devil-may-care spirit she had shown as a young pilot. "It
was an unfulfilled life in many ways," Ms.
INSELBERG said.
In 1969, a dream came true when mother and daughter boarded a
DC8 British Airways plane bound for England. It was Jessica Jarvis
HUNT's first commercial flight. While she wasn't in the cockpit,
the experience proved exhilarating. When the crew heard about
her early flying days, they invited her to meet the captain and
see what it was like to be behind the controls in a high-tech
cockpit -- so very different from the open planes she once flew
in the Ontario skies of her youth.
She lived alone most of her life and, in the late 1980s, moved
to British Columbia to be near her daughter.
"I never looked on flying as anything but a recreation," she
said in 1993. "There were other women pilots who were much more
accomplished."
Jessica Jarvis
HUNT was born in Toronto on August 26, 1911, and
died in the Okanagan Valley town of Enderby, British Columbia,
on April 16, 2005. She was 93. She is survived by her daughter
Diana INSELBERG and by half-brother William Michael
JARVIS.
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INSON o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2005-01-25 published
INSON,
Daphne
Rose
(MITCHELL)
At Chesley Park Retirement Home on Monday, January 24, 2005,
Daphne Rose
(MITCHELL)
INSON of London in her 83rd year. Beloved
wife of John
INSON of London. Dear mother of Doug and his wife
Pam HIGGIN and David and his wife
Jane
HIGGIN all of London.
Loved by 4 grandchildren David and Lisa and Erin and Julien and
1 great-granddaughter Hailey. Dear sister-in-law of Elizabeth
BILYEA of London. Friends will be received at the Logan Funeral
Home, 371 Dundas St. (between Waterloo and Colborne St.) on Wednesday
2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Funeral service will be held in the chapel on
Thursday, January 27, 2005 at 1 p.m. Friends who wish, may make
memorial donations to the charity of your choice. On line condolences
www.loganfh.ca A tree will be planted as a living memorial to
Mrs. INSON.
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