Bea Thurston, Pioneering Pilot

World War II pilot and Pacific Palisades resident Beulah (Bea) St. Claire Smith Thurston passed away peacefully on Saturday, April 14. Born in New York City on January 13, 1923, Bea attended Roanoke College before studying aeronautical engineering at Penn State University. Upon graduation, Bea enlisted in military and became a member of an elite corps of women who were the first female military pilots in U.S. history and were more commonly referred to as the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots). After her training at Sweetwater, Texas, she ferried planes across the United States and towed live ammunition targets to aid in the training of army gunners. After World War II, Bea married George W. Thurston and parented five children, including Sheryl Thurston Rosenbaum, an environmental engineer who lives in Pacific Palisades with her husband, Gary Rosenbaum, and their two children, Samantha and Joe, who are students at Paul Revere Middle School. While raising her children in New Jersey and Rhode Island, Bea worked as a high school math teacher and a realtor. More recently, she served as national president of the WASPs of World War II from 2002-2004, and represented that organization by riding in a number of Pacific Palisades Fourth of July parades and at other functions around the nation, including an event at the White House on Veterans Day 2002. Last year, she was inducted into the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame. In recent years, Bea was accompanied by her caregiver Shirley Ali, and they were fixtures at the Palisades Recreation Center attending Bea’s grandchildren’s many sporting events and at the Sunday farmers’ market on Swarthmore. She is survived by her children, Crystal Thurston of Sun Valley, Idaho; David Thurston of Cambridge, Massachusetts; George Thurston of Chester, New York; Robert Thurston of East Greenwich, Rhode Island; and Sheryl Rosenbaum of Pacific Palisades; three sisters, Adabelle Miller, Daisy Dennis and Gloria Robertson; and 12 grandchildren. Bea will be buried with full military honors at the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday, May 7, at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the “WASP Endowment” at Texas Woman’s University Foundation, P.O. Box 425618, Denton, TX 76204.