A Woman Worked In A Candy Factory But Didn’t Suspect Her Later Career Would Make History

The line moves along, and a young woman checks over the candy as it passes in front of her. It’s not the most interesting job, but it’s putting Mary Tornich through college. And when she graduates, she’s going to move on to a much more interesting career, culminating in a role that will truly create history.

Important figure

Later known under her married name, Mary Tornich Janislawski didn’t work in a candy factory for the rest of her days. No, she would become an important figure in the world of navigation. But her work was not simply bound to the sea. It found a realm where her discoveries would become significant in opening up new worlds.

Long life

Janislawski lived to 90, and of course if you enjoy that long a life, you’re likely to have some colorful experiences. She lived through World War II, and she had a part to play there too. Not as a combatant — she had a distaste for warlike endeavors — but in a role that was in keeping with her talents.

Rare skill

What were those talents? Well, Janislawski had a rare skill that brought her to notice at a young age: she had a tremendous ability in math. And in an age where women were seen by many as having no facility for numbers, well, she proved the naysayers wrong, excelling in a way few men could hope to match.

California girl

Early in the summer of 1908 a pair of people who had made their home in San Francisco, California, but were originally from Europe — specifically Italy and Yugoslavia — welcomed a daughter. They called her Mary. Not much is known about her childhood, except that she seemed to have had a fascination with aviation, creating a pilot’s cap out of felt.

Sweet job

While Janislawski worked on her degrees in mathematics and astronomy at Berkeley’s University of California, she paid her way with a job in a candy factory. She probably couldn’t have predicted the course of her life, but certainly she knew she had a talent in math and a love of astronomy. So strong was that affinity, that when she graduated with honors in astronomy, only two other students matched her performance.

Navigators’ match

Janislawski’s focus on astronomy would stand her in good stead. She would pass much of her life teaching others how to navigate by the stars. Her interest in navigation was reflected in her marriage, too. She wed Captain Stanley Janislawski, a naval officer who also took up a teaching post.

Sailor man

Janislawski’s husband had worked his way up the ranks in the merchant marine. He served a line that took passengers and cargo to and from the Far East across the Pacific Ocean. His skills as a sailor became in high demand when war broke out, and he signed up for the navy in that conflict. As we’ll see, his wife also had a role to play in the war.

Top man

Before Janislawski met her future husband, she had taken a trip to Washington D.C. so that she could work with Captain Philip Van Horn Weems in navigation. Weems was known as “the Grand Old Man of Navigation,” which gives a good idea of his stature in the field. Among others, he had given lessons to famous figures including aviator Charles Lindbergh and polar explorer Admiral Richard Byrd.

Orphan succeeds

Weems, a Tennessee native, had been left an orphan at a young age. But that, and being educated in a tiny local school, hadn’t stopped him from going on to graduate from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He invented his own method of navigation and would later share his knowledge with astronauts.

Synchronized watches

The navigational genius also invented several useful devices, not least of them the Second Setting Watch. This was a device with a rotating bezel that the wearer could fix. This allowed troops wearing it to set their second hands together, in other words to “synchronize watches.” The timepiece was also invaluable to aviators, and you can still buy one today from horologist Longines.

Great solution

While studying with Weems, Janislawski was confronted with a particularly difficult problem, one that concerned navigation in aircraft. Weems was so impressed with the elegance of her solution that he went on to publish a manual that she would write on the subject. Clearly, the admiration went both ways because she would become a disciple of Weems.

Navigation system

The young navigation expert would come back to the west coast to teach others the Weems System of Navigation. In fact, she had a school of her own in San Francisco. But she also lectured in Weems’ method at Berkeley, and also at Oakland’s Polytechnic College of Engineering and at Stanford University.

Fly boys

The system that Janislawski taught attracted aviators in their droves. As we mentioned, Weems had taught Lindbergh, a man whose name would echo around the world in the wake of his solo crossing of the Atlantic in 1927. His success made flying really sexy, boosting the industry considerably. And with more pilots needed, business boomed for Weems and Janislawski.

Sky high

Janislawski would go on to teach many aviators the secrets of celestial navigation. Perhaps the best known of them was Fred Noonan. Like her husband, Noonan had moved up the ranks in the merchant marine before making the switch to aviation. By 1930 he was focused on flying, and one trip in particular made his name forever.

Plane lost

Already a famed navigator himself, in 1937 Noonan met up with Amelia Earhart. Impressed with him, she asked him to become her navigator when she took a plane around the world. After one aborted attempt, the pair took off for Howland Island in the Pacific. But something went wrong — to this day no one knows what it was — and the plane vanished, never to be seen again.

Outstanding teacher

Still, Noonan’s disappearance was highly unlikely to have been anything to do with his education from Janislawski: as he said, he had become a navigator of note in his own right. In fact, Janislawski was very much valued as an educator, with The New York Times newspaper declaring her the “most outstanding woman teacher of aerial navigation” in 1940. And that acclaim was not restricted to the newspaper.

Squeaky rubber

Janislawski’s daughter Mimi said that her students remembered her style of teaching for the rest of their lives. If their attention drifted, Janislawski would bring it back by squeaking her rubber airplane! It seemed that her classes were enjoyable, making it easy for the students to learn, and very few didn’t go on to pass their aviation authority exams.

In transition

But the educator’s work had a serious impact too. Gaylord Green, legendary navigator and co-developer of global positioning systems, reckoned that Janislawski had pioneered navigation’s transition from art to science. She had helped that move by being part of the Institute of Navigation from its inception. And she didn’t just turn up and sit at the back, Green noted.

Art and science

The GPS pioneer said, “Understanding both the art and science of navigation, Mary helped shape the agenda of meetings for navigation to advance to a modern capability.” He went on to note that Britain’s Royal Institute of Navigation was developed along the same lines as a direct result of the success of the U.S. model.

War effort

But the smooth progress of Janislawski’s life would be rudely interrupted by Japanese bombers, as the attack on Pearl Harbor ushered the U.S. into war. Something of a peacenik, she would still become a superstar educator of aviators on their way to the fight, leaving Stanford for roles with the military.

Brothers and sister

Working at King City Airport in Mesa Del Rey in central California, Janislawski showed thousands of cadets how they could find out where they were while flying. One of those students, Joseph H. Casey, would later reminisce, “If we were a band of brothers, Mary was truly a sister to us.”

Pilots learn

On top of that, the educator took on roles at Palo Alto Airport and at the naval base at Alameda. There, she trained women who had signed up for the navy’s WAVES program in simulators. And of course she took under her wing many navy pilots who needed to learn how to fly combat missions without using their radios.

Lives saved

It’s probably not possible to count how many lives were saved by Janislawski’s classes, but she certainly left the war with her reputation burnished. She went back to teaching once Mimi was old enough and helped Transocean Airlines pilots with their certification, working out of Oakland. She’d also help Transocean and PanAm chart routes across the Pacific.

Teaching once more

If that didn’t keep Janislawski busy enough, she also continued to teach the Weems system to sailors and fliers, out of her home in Sausalito, CA. But before long, she was back to teaching military aviators. In 1957 Transocean was engaged to train Army fliers, and that meant Janislawski’s squeaky plane was back in action.

Into space

In the 1960s Janislawski’s career took an interesting turn. It had up until then been focused on celestial navigation: finding where you are and where you’re going using the Sun, Moon, and stars. But one thing that wasn’t clear was how you could navigate to the Moon itself, and just as importantly, how you could tell where on the Moon you were.

Lunar grid

Who better to turn to than Janislawski? Contemplating the surface of the Moon was a long way from her first job, helping to manufacture candies, but that is where her work became of great use. She had helped the investigation and navigation of the lunar surface by fashioning grid maps of the satellite. These were used by astronauts on the Apollo missions.

“Giant leap”

We don’t know how Janislawski felt about her invention. But it doesn’t seem a huge stretch to picture her beaming with pride as she pictured Neil Armstrong using her navigation aid to discern where exactly he was taking that first step. Her work had certainly helped mankind to make that “giant leap.”

Beyond the Moon

And the educator’s work went even further. A year after the lunar landing, she showed NASA something even more special. At a meeting of the Institute of Navigation at the Ames research center, she demonstrated to NASA scientists how you could navigate on any planet that they were able to reach.

Finding your way

Of course, man has not yet taken a step on any other planet, either in the Solar System or further afield. But if they did, they could use Janislawski’s mapping technique to find their way. It works just as well for Mars, or Venus if you could actually land there, or any other planet in the galaxy.

Technological solution

And they might well have to resort to such a technique: after all, it’s not as though astronauts could use GPS on another planet yet! Technology moves on at a breathtaking pace, and while many of us can remember a time before we could get Siri to tell us where we are, soon astronauts will be able to use her to find their way on the Moon! Well, kind of.

Siri in space?

Scientists from the U.K. are working on a machine to make GPS usable on the Moon. The machine, NaviMoon, is the product of Space PNT, a Swiss company, which has built it for the European Space Agency. The plan is for the device to be demonstrated on a mission in 2024.

Expensive business

Space PNT CEO Cyril Botteron explained to website Space.com in 2022 why the device came into being. He said, “Today, to determine the position of a spacecraft on the Moon, we use parabolic antennas that are on Earth. But as Earth rotates, you need many stations, and also some rather expensive technologies on the satellites. Using a simple GPS receiver will make the process much cheaper.”

Signal booster

But it’s not just as simple as sticking a GPS into your lunar module. The GPS satellites and their European Galileo counterparts are all pointed at the Earth itself. So any signal that escapes toward the Moon is just “spillover” in Botteron’s words. He said, “The [GPS] signal [that reaches the Moon] is 1,000 times weaker than on Earth. On top of that, the signal only comes from one side, whereas on Earth, you are surrounded by those satellites on all sides.”

Good coverage

So NaviMoon works as a kind of booster. The plan is that it will send GPS signals onto the Moon. With as few as five satellites surrounding the Moon, it will be covered. Botteron said, “What that technology will enable us basically to do, is to locate satellites orbiting the Moon, and these satellites will then act as GPS or Galileo satellites for the Moon user.”

Space race

The Europeans are not the only people exploring this technology. NASA is also looking to expand navigation systems to the Moon. And what’s more, the agency is planning an even longer trip — out to Mars. It’s currently only at the stage of sending a trial to the Moon, but visionaries at NASA emphasize how important good navigation is to exploration of any celestial body.

Superior achievement

Given the significance of navigation, it’s not a surprise that Janislawski’s life work is seen as tremendously valuable. In 1972 she enjoyed the distinction of being bestowed with the honor of the Institute of Navigation’s Superior Achievement Award. No other woman had achieved this level of recognition before her. And few can ever have had such success in three different realms of travel: sea, air, and finally space.

Honored life

The Institute of Navigation went one further and named Janislawski as a Fellow — again making her the first woman to be so honored — on her passing in 1998. And if you happen to take a walk in Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco and you come across the Maritime Research Center, you’ll find a tribute to her there. Hanging on the wall are some of her own navigational instruments.

Written tribute

Janislawski’s impact on the progress of navigation is perhaps best summed up by war hero Ernie Ford, who had been one of her students before the war. He wrote a letter to her daughter Mimi when Janislawski died. That 1999 missive pays a heartfelt tribute to a truly incredible woman.

Between planets

Ford wrote, “Not only did your mother train pilots how to fly in the sky above and return, but she developed a new and altogether different way to navigate in outer space and safely return. This made interplanetary travel possible.” And although she did not live to see a person walk on Mars, she played a huge part in making it possible one day.