Former Democratic presidential candidate and current United Nations global ambassador on hunger Sen. George McGovern paid a visit to the museum over the Fourth of July weekend to tour the Collings Foundation’s visiting Consolidated B-24J Liberator, “Witchcraft.” McGovern flew 35 combat missions as a B-24 bomber pilot in Europe during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.
At 102, Florence Abrahamson is likely the country’s oldest living “Rosie the Riveter.” She visited Seattle in early June to get a close look at the museum’s B-17 and B-29—examples of the two types of aircraft she helped build during World War II at the Boeing plant in Aberdeen, Wash. Although she had never even seen a completed B-17 before, she jumped at the unexpected chance to fly aboard one—the B-17G “Fuddy Duddy,” on tour with the Experimental Aircraft Association. Abrahamson’s aircraft-building career began a whole world war earlier, when she worked in a mill in Cosmopolis, Wash., at age 15 making wooden parts for DH-4s.