Rosalie Maggio

Have you ever heard of Marie Marvingt (1875-1963)? It's highly unlikely that you have. And yet ... and yet ...

In 1980 I came across a brief mention of her, saying that she "was the most incredible woman since Joan of Arc," the most decorated woman in the world.

My reaction was: "Pshaw! I've been to college, for heaven's sake. I would have heard of her." Later I found her obituary in the New York Times. As we know, this is a sober publication, not given to fiddling with the truth.

So I began researching her life. Yes, she truly had been an outstanding pilot, balloonist, athlete, inventor, nurse, and much more. She fought in the front lines of World War I disguised as a soldier until she was discovered to be a woman. In that war, she also flew, nursed, and invented the ambulance airplane. She was decorated with the Croix de Guerre for bombing a German airbase. She taught scores of young pilots to fly. She was the third woman in the world to obtain her pilot's license; she set the first international aviation records for women; at one time she held licenses to fly five types of aircraft; she flew a jet-engined helicopter over Paris at the age of 85.

That's just some of the story. She was awarded a gold medal from the French Academy of Sports for being excellent "in all sports." All! Swimming, skiing, bicycling, flying, ballooning, mountain climbing, ice skating, canoeing, and more. She outshot an entire army division in riflery. She piloted a balloon across the North Sea--many people had died trying that trick. (You can see her signed & dated bronze wings in the aviator's chapel of St. Francis in Riverside, California. Amelia Earhart's signed wings are there too, as are Eddie Rickenbacker's and other famous flyers. Marie visited the United States twice, once giving a well-received talk in Washington, D.C.)

I had lived in Nancy, France, for a year while taking university classes two years after Marie died there. Our paths had never crossed, but she had lived there for 75 years, so I went back to investigate. When I got to Nancy in 1982, it was to discover that not only had she been completely forgotten, in Nancy as well as in the whole of France, but she was about to be kicked out of her grave.

She had died in such poverty that her gravesite was only rented for 20 years. Having died in 1963, it was time--in 1982--for her to be removed, her remains put in a box, and her gravesite resold.

At the time of her death, popular Parisian radio host Jean Nocher said to his listeners, "I've got a riddle for you, for all you champions of radio and television games, for all you history buffs, for all you teachers who want to hold up to our youth the best examples of contemporary heroism."

He then asked if his listeners could identify by name "incontestably the greatest female aviation pioneer who has just died in total obscurity and poverty after having enjoyed one of the most brilliant, the most exceptional careers of any woman in history."

Nocher went on to give clues, telling his listeners that at the height of her popularity she was more famous than the astronauts of the early 1960s. He listed many of her accomplishments and awards and added that she was the most eloquent speaker he'd ever had the good fortune to meet. "Who among you remembers her?" he asked. "Do historians remember her? Sociologists? Who could answer my question, except for a few people from Lorraine or the nurses in the hospital who received, in the greatest silence, her last sigh?"

He challenged his audience: "Admit that it's intriguing, engrossing, and even fascinating. Who was she? Is there one young French person out of ten thousand who could tell me her name? Try it for yourself. Ask people you know if they remember her. It's a cruel game, but it will tell you a great deal about today's society."

After he finally revealed her name, spelling it carefully, Nocher added, "Don't you find it inconceivable that we have responded with silence and ingratitude to this heroine who brought so much honor to her country and to her sex?"

He suggested that a few little streets here and there in France be named after her. "That's not asking much, is it? I'm not proposing that we rename one of our great monuments after her. It appears that would be very expensive. But doesn't it cost us more, in the long run, to forget such a marvelous role model as Marie Marvingt?"

Twenty years after that broadcast, I was in Nancy and discovered that she was still forgotten, that no streets had been named after her, that only a few people recognized her name.

I spent the next six years researching her life and writing a biography. The next two years passed quickly as I tried and failed to find a French publisher. In the meantime, I had articles about her published--for adults in Women's Sports & Fitness and for children in Jack and Jill, Young American, and in a three-part series in Cricket. I finally found a sympathetic publisher (the wonderful Jeannie Jung-Pierron) in the Alsace-Lorraine region, but she said that since Marie was unknown to French readers and I was even more unknown to them, she could take the book only on condition that I accept a French co-author. Marcel Cordier had published a number of books at that time and was well known in the East of France.

The group of friends from Nancy who had encouraged and helped my work all along--thank you most especially, dear Jacqueline Maire, and also Marie-Jose Pelerin, Renee Schmit, Odette Friry, Guy Ploussard, Nicole Diehl, Simone Pierre, the Lherault family, Madame Rogez, Gilbert Grandidier, and others--said that I mustn't do that. "Once again," they said, "We have a woman's story written by a woman that can be published only if a man's name is on it." They were, in some ways, quite correct. On the other hand, I lived in the United States and had exhausted my resources flying back and forth looking for a publisher. I wanted the book published. It was time. Marcel Cordier has done a great deal for Marie Marvingt and is the single most knowledgeable source of information on her in France. He founded a club, he brings her to the public's attention every chance he gets, and has written chapters on her in his regional biographies. Still, I small-mindedly like it known that the book that was published was written entirely by me (with a thorough editing of my French). The only thing the French publisher balked at was the chapter I had written on Marie Marvingt's psychology. Although this fascinated me endlessly, I was told that the French weren't interested in her psychology, so that chapter was removed. Oh well.

Today, there are streets, gyms, residences, schools, airports, and even a postage stamp named after Marie Marvingt. I can only think she'd be delighted!

If you want to know more about Marie Marvingt, Google her name, see the Wikipedia article on her (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Marvingt), or get a copy of "our" book, Marie Marvingt: La femme d'un siecle by Rosalie Maggio & Marcel Cordier (www.Editions-Pierron.com).

Note to Hollywood: I've written a dramatic and suspenseful 110-page biopic based on Marie Marvingt's life titled "Wings."