Canadian Aviatrix #85 – Lillian Rajcsak (1919-2007)
[Date above is last edited. First published: June 15, 2022]
Lillian Rose Rajcsak was born on December 4, 1919 in Hamilton, Ontario, to Steven Julius Rajcsak (a leadburner) and Rozália Mary Zámbó (a nurse). Steve was born in Indiana to Hungarian parents, while Rose was born in Hungary herself, moving to Canada around 1915. The couple were married in 1916 – he was 23, she was 18.
The family was living in Buffalo, New York, in the 1930 US census, but had moved to Sudbury, Ontario, by the 1931 Canadian census.
Lillian joined the Sudbury Flying Club and by 1940 was working as their secretary – using Rashaw as her surname.
On 7 April 1941, Lillian passed her flying test and received her PPL, making her the 85th female pilot in Canada. She was 20 years old.
Photo: Private Pilot's Licence #3990
In December, she was flying one of the club planes when it was “forced down for reasons not known” and crashed. Lillian had two teeth knocked out and some cuts on her face. Her passenger was a fur trader called Charles Racicot and he made moccasins out of his coat sleeves to protect Lillian’s feet from the cold as they walked for help.
Lillian is listed as a trainee with the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs). She was in class 44-W-3, training from October 1943 to April 1944. There were 96 women in the class, but Lillian was one of 39 that didn’t graduate.
At some point around the end of the war, Lillian married Warren Loudy and they had a daughter in 1947. By the 1950 US census, the couple were divorced. Lillian lived in Columbus, Ohio, with another divorced woman and her children, while working as a mail clerk and typist for an insurance company. Meanwhile, her daughter was staying with her grandparents in Marion, Ohio.
In 1952, Lillian got remarried to James Lloyd Haddow – a pilot in the US Air Force and five years her junior. They had another daughter and eventually moved to California. James died in 1990.
Lillian died on October 15, 2007, aged 87.
Note: Lillian was listed with an asterisk in No Place for a Lady – meaning the author hadn’t been able to find her. I couldn’t find her either, as all of her flying information was under Rashaw, rather than Rajcsak. A very big thank you to the wonderful Wikitreers who found her!
Watch the video of the Wikitree research by clicking below:
I’ve dropped you an email, Dennis. If you don’t get it, you can email me at hello @ randomlygenerated.ca. Thanks again!
Hi Dennis. Thanks for the info. I’ll email you!
I have quite a few photographs of Lillian. If you send an active email address I can send a few. She lived in Columbus, Ohio and spent many years in Los Angelas, California. Her Married names were Bull and Haddow. She died in 1987 and her obituary is published in the Hamilton, Ontario Spectator.