Mary Ann Lippitt devoted her life to many civic and charitable causes and for 26 years was an aviator and owner of Lippitt Aviation. Born on June 29, 1918 at Pride’s Crossing, Massachusetts, she died on Sunday, June 18, 2006 at age 87 at her Providence home where she had lived with her late brother, Frederick Lippitt, for over 50 years. She was buried with him in Swan Point Cemetery and their house was donated to Brown University.
Miss Lippitt was a descendant of a family that was influential in Rhode Island business and politics. She was the daughter of United States Senator Henry F. Lippitt, 1911-1917, and Lucy Hayes Herron Lippitt. She was the granddaughter of Governor Henry Lippitt and the niece of Governor Charles Warren Lippitt. America’s First Lady Nellie (Herron) Taft was her aunt.
Miss Lippitt attended the Gordon School in East Providence and graduated from the Foxcroft School in Dover, Maine in 1936. As a teenager she enrolled in the first Gray Ladies training class and the first nurses’ aide class for the Rhode Island Red Cross. She took special Red Cross training at Fort Devens during World War II to work with psychiatric patients.
In 1944, she learned to fly during a trip to Hot Springs, Virginia. She worked as a flying instructor in Virginia and served in the US air postal service before returning to Rhode Island. She also competed at least once in the famous “Powder Puff Derby” the transcontinental flying races for women pilots which took place from 1947-1977.
In 1946 she opened the Lippitt Aviation Corporation based at Hillsgrove airport in Warwick (now T.F. Green Airport), though she also flew from Quonset Point, the former Naval Air Station.
During the 26 years that she owned the company, Miss Lippitt taught flying and operated a charter flight service with a fleet of up to four planes. She was a dealer for the Johnson Rocket, which was the fastest light plane in the world at that time. It could cruise at 185 miles an hour and travel 1,000 miles without refueling.
After selling her company in 1972, Miss Lippitt continued to devote herself to charitable and civic causes, including serving as Chairman of the Board of the Greater Rhode Island Chapter, Providence Region, of the Red Cross, President of the Boards of Bannister House and the Women’s Center, and Board Member of the Providence Public Library, Gordon School, John Hope Settlement House, the Animal Rescue League, and Preserve Rhode Island. Brown University recognized her services to the community by awarding her the President’s Medal in 2004 and the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame honored her in 2013.
Miss Lippitt made significant donations to many local charities including the Providence Public Library, which has named the exhibition hall at the Central Branch in her honor; Brown University where she funded professorships in the Medical School; and Butler Hospital, where she and her brother made a leadership gift to fund the new building, named in the Lippitts’ honor, which houses the Senior Center for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other acute psychiatric illnesses.
Timothy More, Esq.
Frank Lennon