Grace Lotowycz

She was born in New York City, the first child of publisher Thomas Walker Ashwell and Helen Mariah Buffum Ashwell; in 1919 the family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, living across the street from Maxwell Perkins.[2] As a child she suffered from several serious illnesses, at one point having to re-learn to walk.[3]

Lotowycz studied botany at Vassar College, where she began mountaineering in the Shawangunks and later the Canadian Rockies. She graduated in 1938[1] and then joined the Experiment in International Living, a student-exchange program which enabled her to climb in the Swiss Alps and scale the Matterhorn. She worked briefly as a curatorial assistant at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.[1][4]

Lotowycz was a pilot in the WASPs in World War II, one of only 1,047. She was a member of Class 44-W-7 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas; and was subsequently assigned to the ferrying service out of Minter Field near Bakersfield, California.[5][6] Lotowycz and the other WASP filers were finally recognized as WWII military veterans in 1977,[7] and received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.[1][8]

After the WASPs were decommissioned in December 1944, she applied to several commercial airlines using her nickname "Gerry Ashwell", but was always told "no".[9] She married Navy pilot Vlademir "Bill" Lotowycz, and they moved to Damascus after the war while he worked for Pan American World Airways.[10]

In 1962, she began working at the Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park where she established and curated the herbarium of preserved plants that currently numbers about 10,000 specimens.[11] She retired in 1984 after 22 years.[4]

Lotowycz was a founding member of the Long Island Botanical Society and lifetime member of the Torrey Botanical Society.

At the age of 88, Lotowycz co-authored a book, Illustrated Field Guide to Shrubs and Woody Vines of Long Island, with Barbara Conolly.[12]