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The Mugnai Family Website
Our Aunt Alda 1916-1947
My aunt Alda was born in 1916 and in 1920 like her two brothers James and Alex she was without her whole family within eight months.
Being the only girl she was the exception and separated from her bothers. She was sent to the all girls school at St. Mary's (now called Maryville).
At 4 years old it had to be terrifying first to lose your parents and then separated from your brothers.
I now wonder if she was ever allowed to see them in the six years they were there.
So, if your ever feeling sorry for yourself come back and read their stories.
Maybe starting out so horribly made her the person she ended up to be.
My father told me she could work on any engine as good as any man, she road motorcycles cross country, flew planes and according to Betty Murphy (Fred Mugnai's daugther) she did some acting at the Shubert theater in Chicago.
Her pilot log books and newspaper clippings read that she was an instructor for Navy and Army cadets. Teaching them to fly during WWII. She ferried planes with the WASP, joined the Veterans Guard and Patrol for Portland, Oregon, was a master parachute rigger, crop dusted and God only knows what else.......
I would say that she came from nothing and was determined to do as much as possible to reverse that. With the disappearance of her plane Sept 11, 1947 her life ended abruptly at the age of 31.
Hopefully, we have made part of her extraordinary life live on.
Being the only girl she was the exception and separated from her bothers. She was sent to the all girls school at St. Mary's (now called Maryville).
At 4 years old it had to be terrifying first to lose your parents and then separated from your brothers.
I now wonder if she was ever allowed to see them in the six years they were there.
So, if your ever feeling sorry for yourself come back and read their stories.
Maybe starting out so horribly made her the person she ended up to be.
My father told me she could work on any engine as good as any man, she road motorcycles cross country, flew planes and according to Betty Murphy (Fred Mugnai's daugther) she did some acting at the Shubert theater in Chicago.
Her pilot log books and newspaper clippings read that she was an instructor for Navy and Army cadets. Teaching them to fly during WWII. She ferried planes with the WASP, joined the Veterans Guard and Patrol for Portland, Oregon, was a master parachute rigger, crop dusted and God only knows what else.......
I would say that she came from nothing and was determined to do as much as possible to reverse that. With the disappearance of her plane Sept 11, 1947 her life ended abruptly at the age of 31.
Hopefully, we have made part of her extraordinary life live on.