Canadian Aviatrix #15 – Grace "Tib" Goulding (born 1903)

Grace Ida Goulding (known as Tib) was born on 31 August 1903 in York, Ontario, to Alfred Graham Goulding (farmer, Secretary of the Weston, Etobicoke & York Agricultural Society) and Ida May Lennox.

On 15 January 1930, Tib passed her flying test and received PPL #495, making her the fifteenth female pilot in Canada. She was 26 years old.

Photo: The Ottawa Citizen (August 4, 1931)

There were lots of newspaper articles about her being Toronto’s first female pilot – with many assuming she was also the first one in the whole of the Dominion. In 1931, Barker Field opened and Tib was one of the attractions – “thrilling thousands” and beating five male pilots in a bombing competition.

Tib flew for about five years and had lots of offers for publicity (e.g. flying a plane sponsored by Parker Pens), but her father wouldn’t allow it.

Tib’s post-flying life is uncertain, but on 27 October 1934, she married Donald Robert Gunn. It’s unknown if Donald died or the couple got divorced, but at some point between 1968 (the death of his first wife) and 1972 (appearing in the voter lists as a married couple), Tib married Thomas Geoffrey Belford Beament.

Tib predeceased Thomas, who died in 1985.