The oldest living Miss America who held the title during World War II has died.
Jo-Carroll Dennison died Oct. 18 in California, People reported. She was 97.
She recently had her autobiography published, “Finding My Little Red Hat,” edited by Evan Mills.
Dennison, who broke with convention by refusing to wear a swimsuit, could “serve as a model for young women — and men — in a world where many are tempted to bend to social expectations rather than trusting and following their own moral compass,” Mills told CNN in an email.
The Miss America Organization announced the death on its Instagram, saying the organization was “saddened to hear of the passing of Miss America 1942.”
“We thank her for her year of service and will miss her dearly,” the post says, mentioning her autobiography published in September.
“This is a book about courage: finding it, losing it, and the search to find it again,” Dennison wrote of her book.
The path begins in 1923 on my father’s traveling medicine show, and leads through a circus, a carnival, finding a way through child abuse, and becoming a secretary, of all things.
My path took a major turn when I won the Miss America pageant in 1942, at the age of 18, which led to becoming a movie starlet amid the extraordinary goings on of 1940s and 50s Hollywood.
During my twenty-three years of marriage, however, somehow I lost my little red hat and was now terrified by the prospect of starting a brand new life alone at age 57. I decided the best place to look for it was where I had first found it, in my childhood. This book is the result.
