The Ace of Hearts

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This novel is based on the journals of an electrically and mechanically talented young woman from a small hamlet northwest of Toronto, Ontario, Canada that she began writing on August 25, 1914. Her love of new innovations led her to a Catholic college to study and fly airplanes, but she realized she had to act like a male and accomplished much with the assistance of an improperly filled out birth certificate. Without a physical exam, she joined the Royal Air Corps and fought the Germans in France. After becoming an aviation ace, a red German triplane shot her down above Brussels, Belgium to be saved by her future life partner. 

Her journals describe her life on a rural farm, at a Catholic college, ground and flight school to her air battles to be shot down and hiding from German patrols after crashing, the difficulties they caused the German army, and her relationships, including a nun. Her sixth romance brought her to her soulmate and ace status. 

We were most shocked that she had overcome several obstacles, including hiding her sex, to flourish in a male-dominated world. We couldn't identify this woman in the archives. Only her diary remained, although she concealed her lesbianism during World War I. We respect her anonymity. We don't know how the diaries left the family because we can't discover any living relatives of the girl they adopted who grew up and had children. Her first son was killed in the Vietnam War in the Ia Drang River Valley and her second in a car accident. 

Wrapped in brown paper were three journals we bought at an auction book lot. These should be shared; thus, we provide them. All names in this novel have been changed; any resemblance to living or deceased people is coincidental. Several places have changed names. Chronology follows history.