Trivia

She met future astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom in high school in Mitchell, Indiana; they married in 1945. She worked as a late-night phone operator to help pay for his studies at Purdue University, where he majored in mechanical engineering.

Her husband was killed in 1967, along with Roger Chaffee and Ed White, when an electrical fire broke out inside the Apollo 1 command module during testing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Apollo program's prime contractor, North American Rockwell, and inspired the other widows to do likewise. She won a $350,000 settlement in 1972.