Personal Paragraphs
Mrs. Edward Venskus of Washington, D.C., is spending about two weeks with her father, J. N. Loeltz. Mrs. Venskus is the former Miss Helen Loeltz.
Source: Carroll Daily Times Herald, November 24, 1943
Mrs. Helen Venskus, Daughter of J.N. Loeltz, in WASPS
Mrs. Helen Loeltz Venskus, who has been visiting her father, J.N. Loeltz, the past week, is leaving Friday morning for Sweetwater, Tex., where she is taking a six month flying course in the Women's Air Service Pilots Training Detachment.
Source: Carroll Daily Times Herald, March 8, 1944
Helen Venskus Here On Furlough After Graduation as Flyer
Helen Marie Venskus, who was graduated Oct. 9 as a member of the sixteenth class of Women's Airforce Service Pilots at the AAF Training Command's school for women flyers at Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Tex., arrived last night to spend a furlough with her father, J.N. Loeltz.
Before joining the WASP, Mrs. Venskus was a clerk for the United States Government in Washington, D.C.
The WASP, as directed by General H.H. Arnold, chief of the AAF, will be inactivated Dec. 20, but until that time women pilots will continue with present jobs.
Source: Carroll Daily Times Herald, October 13, 1944
Powder Puff Pilots
Helen Venskus, of Mansfield, Ohio, left and Marjy Crowls of Phoenix, check over their route before flying to Santa Ana, Calif., where they will enter the Fifth Annual All-Women's Transcontinental Air Races starting Wednesday.
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Arizona) August 14, 1951 (photo included)
Helen Venkus One of Only 60 in U.S. --
Ex-Carroll Girl Air Traffic Controller
Helen Loeltz Venskus, sister of Laverdos Loeltz of Carroll, is one of only 60 women traffic controllers listed by the Federal Aviation Agency.
She is one of 12 who is a pilot and the only one who has a commercial flying license and a multi-engine rating.
Mrs. Venskus is an air traffic controller at Port Columbus. She started flying in 1944 and as soon as she had enough hours enlisted in the WASP. By the end of World War II she was based at Oklahoma and was test flying B-25 bombers.
When the war ended, she joined the Civil Aeronautics Administration as a airways operation specialist in radio communications. She was stationed at Mansfield, Ohio when that airport first got a traffic control tower in July 1956 and was transferred to the Columbus tower last June.
At Port Columbus, 174,301 takeoffs and landings took place last year or an average of one every three minutes.
Mrs. Venskus reports she is very happy controlling planes in the air and "couldn't imagine doing any other kind of work now."
Her flying is strictly for pleasure. She is a longtime member of the Ohio chapter of the Flying Ninety-Nines, a woman's flying group.
Mrs. Venskus, as she is known professionally is a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Loeltz of Carroll County. She was born at Breda, Iowa, attended St. Bernards School in Breda and was graduated from St. Angela Academy in Carroll, in 1937 afterwards taking a business course at the American Institute of Business in Des Moines.
In a recent letter to her brother Laverdos, she said that she is now studying radar to qualify as a radar specialist.
Source: Carroll Daily Times Herald (Carroll, Iowa) Wednesday, April 15, 1959 (photo included)
Vital Records:
Helen Marie Loeltz
Born: 18 Sep 1919, Breda, Iowa
Died: 20 Sep 2004
Married: 20 Dec 1941, Washington, D.C.
Spouse: Isadore Edward Venskus
Divorced: Arlington, Virginia – 29 May 1951
Mrs. Helen Loeltz Venskus
Enlistment Date: 15 Mar 1944
Release Date: 20 Dec 1944
Source: ancestry.com
