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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Mr. Frank Easton Jr.

Monica Flaherty was born May 4, 1920 in the United States. Since the age of three, she traveled with her parents, Robert and Frances Flaherty, during their filming expeditions to Samoa, Ireland, England, India, and across the US.

Monica attended Elementary schools in Germany and England, and graduated in 1936 with a school certificate from Dartington Hall in Devonshire, England. She was an apprentice to German scenic designer and painter Hein Hechroth (Jooss Ballet, movie director, Michael Powell's Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes) as well as to Swiss surrealist painter, Kurt Seligmann (Hanya Holm's ballet The Golden Fleece).

In World War II she was a ferry pilot- WASP- for U.S. Air Transport Command, USAF from 1942-1944. Then from 1944-1946 she was a researcher for FORTUNE magazine in the New York and London offices. She also was the assistant to Betty Parsons at the Betty Parsons Art Gallery in New York City from 1948-1952. Then from 1955-1958 she organized her own archaeological research programs initiating two field trips in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Island (a founder of the Virgin Islands Museum).

Flaherty was a resident of the US Virgin Islands from 1951-56 and 1966-72. In the interim, she resided in La Spezia, Italy from 1960-66. In her later years, she resided in Brattleboro, Vermont and was the Curator of Vermont Flaherty Study Center since 1972. In 1975, on a personal grant from the NEA, she embarked on an expedition to the original site of the filming of Robert Flaherty's MOANA in 1924 on the island of SAVAI'I in Western Samoa to develop a synch-sound track for the film. Since 1981, she has toured with the sound version of MOANA- presenting the film to Universities, Museums, Academies, and Cinematheques in France, Germany, England, Italy, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, French Polynesia, Hawaii, Switzerland, and Portugal. Flaherty speaks German, Italian, and French as well as English.