Nona Leshia Goard, nee Malloy, was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, in 1908. In 1922, her father moved the family to Portland, Oregon. At age 16, Nona Goard ran away from home to St. Paul, Minnesota, where she began taking flying lessons from Captain Joseph Westover. She performed as a wing walker, parachute jumper, and stunt pilot. At the close of the 1930s, she returned to Portland and opened a parachute-packing business. At the time, she was one of only 10 women in the United States to hold a parachute-packing license. In the early 1950s, she opened the Nona School of Dress Design, a fashion design school for girls, with locations in Moro and Lake Oswego, Oregon.

She married four times, outliving all her spouses, and had one child. She was also known as Nona L. Stack, Nona L. Plamondon, and Nona L. Skow. She died in 1986.

Sources: Vital records on Ancestry.com; information provided by Goard in her interview; “For Nona, a 1500 foot Jump into the Nearest Field,” by Frances Blakely, Oregon Daily Journal, June 1, 1954, Women's Section, Page 1; “Ninety Nines to Honor Air Daredevils,” by Helen L. Mershon, Oregon Daily Journal, June 18, 1963, Page 15.