While Helen Holcombe is recognized as the earliest female employee in Boeing's drafting department (joining the team in 1917), Bessie Hall Dempsey (1914-1971) is credited as Boeing's first female aeronautical engineer hired in 1946. She had moved to Seattle as a child with her mother and older sister, attending Broadway High School and then Cornish School of Fine Arts. She studied classical ballet, folk dance, music theory, composition and choreography, but was also a strong student in physics, mathematics, and foreign languages. For a time, she lived in San Francisco, performing in ballets, nightclubs, and movies under the stage name Yvonne St. Clair. Bessie earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from USC and moved back to Seattle with her son Mark after her divorce from husband Lee Dempsey. She was hired by Boeing under the name B.H. Dempsey, a name she used professionally in order to hide her gender. During her 24-year Boeing career, she continued to perform in local dance and theater productions.