Headwinds: a memoir
A 2020 Kansas Notable Book
When World War II makes her way to southwest Kansas, Edna Bell-Pearson's life is forever changed. After meeting the man who is to become her husband-a pilot stationed in her hometown of Liberal-Edna moves to the opposite corner of the state. She is instrumental in starting what will become the Marysville Municipal Airport. Edna's story, taking place over the course of five short years, tells of Ungerer Flying Service, a family-built and operated business. As the business is born, Edna learns to appreciate the importance of the little things-hunting and fishing trips, a good housekeeper, and crisp, autumnal days without wind.
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"Edna Bell-Pearson has given the reader a superbly seamless blend of memoir, romance, history, and Americana delineating the initiation of the Air Age by the 'greatest generation' coming back home from World War II--and in particular one family's involvement in it--rendered with a deft novelistic touch, detail, and emotion characteristic of the versatile writer that she is."
--Mark Scheel, author of And Eve Said Yes with Seven Stories
"Moving beyond the simple 'GIs returned home and started flying, ' that we get in the textbooks, Headwinds shows how every step from acquiring airplanes to building airports required an endless set of decisions from the men and women who wanted Kansas to fly into the future. A person reading Headwinds will likely never see a small Kansas airport and local air service the same way again."
--Jay M. Price, Local and Community History Program Department of History, Wichita State University
