Photo Courtesy: U.S. Navy

Antarctica’s First Lady, Edith “Jackie” Ronne, wife of the famed polar explorer Finn Ronne and the first American woman to visit the continent in the 1940s, has passed away. She was 89. Ronne, along with Canadian Jennie Darlington, became the first woman to winter-over in Antarctica from 1947-48. In 2004, she published a book about her experiences, Antarctica’s First Lady. The photo above was taken during a 1971 trip to South Pole. Ronne is holding a Society of Woman Geographers flag. For more information about Edith Ronne, see the Washington Post obituary article  on June 18, 2009.