KEYSTONE HEIGHTS – Sue Plaster was only 11 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

“My 11th birthday was three days before Pearl Harbor,” she said.

At a young age, she became interested in the war after realizing the significance of the event.

“I remember thinking that I’ll be the only one to remember all this. So, I was taking it in,” she said.

Her interest in World War II also stemmed from the fact her parents were pilots during the war.

Her father, Alfred Ellis, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps the day after Pearl Harbor.

“My father was flying all over the world,” she said.

Eventually, he was stationed in Africa where he remained there until the war ended. Unfortunately, he died not long after the war concluded when his plane’s engines failed over the ocean while transporting a group of women in the WAC, also known as the Women’s Army Corps.

“There were 20 WACs in there. They were taking them to a larger base to put them on a big plane to send them back home,” she said.

Plaster was 14 when he died, but remembers him as someone who was fun and had a love for aerobatics. Her mother, Natalie, was a pilot like her husband before the war started. She taught classes on packing parachutes at the beginning of WWII.

“She was the fourth woman in the world to get a license packing parachutes. She didn’t want someone else to pack her parachute,” Plaster said. “She wanted to do her own.”

A few months later, she moved the family from Iowa to Texas after joining the newly formed Women Airforce Service Pilots or WASP.

“There were only 1,200 that made the WASP. They had 4,000 go through. Some of them didn’t make it. They were very tough on them,” she said.

During her time as a WASP pilot, her mother ferried aircraft from their factories to their designated bases. After the war, she remarried and never pursued flying again. Plaster, now 92, continues to share the memory of her parents and World War II. In addition, she is active at Trinity Baptist Church and plays bridge twice a week. She is also an active member of the Daughters of American Revolution, the Woman’s Club in Melrose and Keystone Heights and a member of the Forever Sisters of Lakes.

Lastly, she is a realtor for CB Isaac Realty and has nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.