Jeanette Hodges Zajac

Jeanette Hodges grew up in Illinois during the Great Depression. As she was graduating from high school, the war with Germany broke out. She soon set out to California to find work and while she was there, she earned an associate degree in Aircraft Design and Drafting from Modesto College.

Jeanette enlisted in the Marine Corps Women's Reserve and felt it an honor to be one of the first Women Marine to serve her country. The Marines were not "always ready" for this as she spent many months wearing men's uniforms and living in dorms with urinals. She spent 1943 – 1945 as an Aircraft Draftsman at the Cherry Point Air Station, making perspective drawing of air-craft engine parts for F45 Wildcats and F7F Hellcats. Otherwise, crucial time drawings of worn out or broken parts of prop trainer-planes that would be made on base. Jeanette was so much a Marine that she continued with her Marine exercises every day. While in her 90's, she was delighted to participate as a World War II Honor Flight honoree.

Following the end of the war she attended Farragut Institute of Technology in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the Northwest School of Photography in Portland, Oregon and a highway design program at Michigan State University.

She was employed for 33 years with the Michigan Department of Transportation and it was here that she met her Civil Engineer husband, Cass Zajac. They retired to Fort Collins 1989 where she became very active in Elderhostel programs, especially James Michener's Centennial. She was a charter member of the WWII Memorial in D.C., the Women's in Military Museum in D.C. and a Life Member of the Women Marine Association. Jeanette had a goal to live to be 100 and she fat exceeded that goal. Jeanette was preceded in death by her husband, Cass Zajac. She leaves a son, Jerry, sister Shirley and many friends she has me around the world over the years. Burial will be next to her husband at Fort Logan Cemetery in Denver, CO Semper Fi Jeanette