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Authors: Elizabeth Mahon
Tags: #General, #History, #Women, #Social Science, #Biography & Autobiography, #Biography, #Women's Studies
Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women (38 page)
BOOK: Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women
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Grieving not only the death of her brother Hugo but also another failed love affair, and feeling as if she was becoming irrelevant, Gertrude became depressed. On July 12, 1926, two days before her fifty-eighth birthday, she was found dead by her maid, a bottle of sleeping pills on her night table. It is unclear if it was a suicide attempt or an accidental overdose. There is speculation that on her last trip to England, she may have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, perhaps lung cancer. It would have been within Gertrude’s character to end her life to spare her parents any suffering. She is buried in the British cemetery in Baghdad in the country that she loved and gave so much of her life for.
When I undertake a task over all protest and in spite of all adversity, I sometimes thrill with the realization that I am doing what I want to do.
—AMELIA EARHART
Amelia Earhart was eleven when she saw a plane for the first time at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. It was in 1908, only five years after the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. Airplanes were still unusual and people were still amazed at the idea of a flying machine. Amelia, however, was not impressed. “It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting,” she recalled years later. It would be years before Amelia’s passion for flying would be awakened. Nor did she know that one day she would surpass the Wright brothers in the annals of aviation.
From childhood, Amelia showed the fearlessness and initiative that would one day make her America’s best-known female pilot. Amelia once built a roller coaster on the roof of her house after seeing one at the World’s Fair, but her mother made her take it down. Although her mother would have preferred her to be a bit more ladylike, she still sewed two gym suits with bloomers for herself and her younger sister, Muriel. Her father also encouraged her, taking her and her sister fishing and to play baseball.
While Amelia was working as a voluntary aid detachment nurse in Toronto during World War I, a former patient, an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, invited her to watch him fly out at the local military airfield. Now watching the planes circling and taking off, as graceful as birds, something took hold inside of her. She soon had a fever for flying; it captured her imagination like nothing else. She spent her rare days off at the local airfield. “I hung around in my spare time and absorbed all I could.” Once, while she and a friend were at the airfield, a pilot dove straight at them just for fun. Her friend ran for safety but Amelia stood her ground. “I did not understand it at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by.”
Despite her new interest in flying, Amelia didn’t take her first flight until she moved to Los Angeles in 1921 to live with her parents, who had reconciled there after a separation. It was her father who took her to an aerial meet at Daugherty Field out in Long Beach, paying ten dollars for Amelia to be taken up for her first flight. She had finally found her destiny. “As soon as we left the ground I knew I myself had to fly.” When her father balked at the cost, Amelia offered to earn her own money to pay for her lessons. Feeling that a woman instructor would make her feel less self-conscious, Amelia took lessons from pioneer woman pilot Neta Snook. Neta charged her a dollar a minute for lessons. To pay for them, Amelia drove a gravel truck and worked for the phone company.
Before she’d even made her first solo flight, she bought her first plane, a Kinner Airstir named
Canary
, for two thousand dollars. Her first crash landing, in a cabbage patch, didn’t dampen her enthusiasm for flying, although it did diminish her fondness for cabbage. Amelia began participating in a few “air rodeo” shows at local airfields. The money she earned help to pay for her expenses. In 1922, Amelia set the women’s altitude record by reaching fourteen thousand feet. Although the record was broken only weeks later, it gave Amelia more confidence in her abilities. Soon she was being featured in the newspapers, including a small article in the
New York Times
, which shocked and appalled her relatives back in Kansas. They were of the opinion that a woman only appeared in the paper when she was born, when she got married, and when she died. Unfortunately for them, Amelia in a few short years would never be out of the news.
Canary
, for two thousand dollars. Her first crash landing, in a cabbage patch, didn’t dampen her enthusiasm for flying, although it did diminish her fondness for cabbage. Amelia began participating in a few “air rodeo” shows at local airfields. The money she earned help to pay for her expenses. In 1922, Amelia set the women’s altitude record by reaching fourteen thousand feet. Although the record was broken only weeks later, it gave Amelia more confidence in her abilities. Soon she was being featured in the newspapers, including a small article in the
New York Times
, which shocked and appalled her relatives back in Kansas. They were of the opinion that a woman only appeared in the paper when she was born, when she got married, and when she died. Unfortunately for them, Amelia in a few short years would never be out of the news.
In 1928, one year after Charles Lindbergh’s landmark flight across the Atlantic, Amelia received a phone call that changed her life. A group including socialite Amy Phipps Guest and publisher and promoter George P. Putnam were looking for a girl with the right image to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. The explorer Richard Byrd knew of Earhart through aviation circles and recommended her.
Amelia seemed to fit the bill. She had a reputation for being one of the most daring and skilled pilots around, always up for a challenge. It didn’t hurt that she bore a striking resemblance to Charles Lindbergh. Despite the fact that she would be only a passenger and would not be paid for the trip, Amelia jumped at the chance to make history. “How could I refuse such a shining adventure?” she said. After a short interview, Amelia was told she was the girl. No one else was even interviewed.
On June 17, 1928, wearing a fur-lined flight suit, she left Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, along with pilot Wilmer Stultz and copilot Louis Gordon, on the Friendship. They landed twenty hours and forty minutes later at Burry Port, Wales. Since Amelia had no experience flying a plane with instruments, her job was limited to keeping the flight log. “Stultz did all the flying—had to. I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes. Maybe someday I’ll try it alone.” But when they finally arrived at Southampton, in England, Stultz and Gordon were completely ignored in favor of Amelia.
Before the flight she was earning sixty dollars a month; now Amelia found herself famous overnight. She was “Lady Lindy” and “First Lady of the Air.” After the tragedy of the First World War, America was looking for heroes. Amelia captured attention by being an all-American girl from the heartland. Tall and slim, with a boyish figure; short, tousled curls; and a ready smile, she seemed like everyone’s daughter or sister. She struck a chord with the public. Young women were inspired by her and the older generation was reassured by her solid Midwestern persona; she was modest and abstained from alcohol and tobacco. On the surface, initially at least, she seemed shy and nervous about the attention, but underneath lay a core of steel and ambition.
As soon as the ticker tape parades were done, Amelia wrote her first book and embarked on a brutal lecture tour. Since Putnam was now managing Amelia, they were thrown in constant contact with each other and were immediately attracted. They shared the same sense of humor, were adventurous, and were devoted to keeping Amelia’s name before the public. There was only one snafu to the burgeoning partnership: Putnam was married, with two children. Soon people began to notice the closeness between the two of them. Putnam’s wife got wise to the situation and filed for a divorce.
Newly single Putnam pressed Amelia to marry him, but she wasn’t convinced that marriage was for her. Her parents’ marriage was no advertisement for the institution and she worried that it would curtail her freedom. “I’m still unsold about marriage. I don’t want anything all of the time.... I think I may never be able to see marriage except as a cage.” Putnam, however, was not a man to take no for an answer. On February 7, 1931, they were married; the only witnesses were one of his uncles and the judge’s son. On their wedding day, Amelia handed George a letter, setting out the terms of their marriage. Fidelity was not asked for or required, she wrote, and she asked that they not interfere with each other’s work and keep their private life private. She also asked him to let her go in a year if she wasn’t happy. After the ceremony, there was no honeymoon, and Amelia was back to work the next day.
Amelia’s fame owed a great deal to Putnam. There were other women flying, like Ruth Nichols and Elinor Smith, but Putnam made sure that it was Amelia in the headlines. He’d already made Lindbergh a household name; now he would do the same for her. He took full advantage of the modern press, especially newsreels. Amelia’s face was everywhere, endorsing everything from chewing gum to cars. Soon she was making more than thirty appearances a month across the country. Her lectures, books, and magazine articles paid for her planes and she used them as a platform to promote causes she believed in, such as opportunities for women to achieve equality in the still young aviation field.
Ironically for someone who achieved so much in the field of aviation, Amelia was not a natural pilot. Although she was highly intelligent, enthusiastic, and a fast learner, Amelia often made stupid mistakes, according to her old instructor, Neta Snook. She once took off for a long flight without checking the fuel tank, and she would often daydream while flying during a lesson. She never learned Morse code or radio telegraphy. And she would crash, not once, but again and again, on landings, on takeoffs. Putnam tried to keep the news of her crashes out of the media as much as possible. Traveling all the time meant that Amelia’s actual flying time was limited, although she tried to fly to as many of her appearances as possible.
In 1932, Amelia decided on another transatlantic flight, only this time she wouldn’t be a passenger, she would be in the driver’s seat. Despite her fame, Amelia wanted to prove, not only to the world, but also to herself, that she was the best woman pilot. Although she had set records and had several firsts under her belt, Amelia hungered for more. Seven women had already perished in the attempt and no man since Lindbergh had flown across the Atlantic alone successfully. Amelia left Newfoundland in her Lockheed Vega five years to the day after Lindbergh left New York for Paris.
But being the first can be hazardous to one’s health. The plane staggered through the fog covered in ice; the altimeter broke; gas dripped down her neck; the plane went into a sudden spin and almost plunged into the ocean; and she didn’t land in Paris as planned but in Ireland. But she made it. Only Amelia’s quick thinking and fast reflexes kept her in the air. After a flight lasting fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes, she landed in a pasture in Culmore in Northern Ireland. Mindful of publicity, Putnam had her restage her arrival for the cameras. For her attempts, Amelia earned the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress, and the Gold Medal from the National Geographic Society.
Amelia wasn’t done yet. In 1935, she became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California, winning a ten-thousand-dollar reward for her trouble. She continued her record breaking by becoming the first woman to fly from Los Angeles to Mexico City solo and then on from Mexico City to New York. From 1930 to 1935, Amelia set seven women’s speed and distance aviation records in a variety of aircraft.
Amelia and Putnam realized that the public’s appetite for record breaking had begun to die down and there were fewer left to break. Still Amelia had one more record that she wanted to make: “A new prize . . . one flight which I most wanted to attempt—a circumnavigation of the globe as near its waistline as could be.” There were some who thought that Amelia was tempting fate with this trip but she ignored the criticism.
Since Amelia was on the faculty of Purdue University as a technical adviser to the Department of Aeronautics, the school partly financed the Lockheed L-10E Electra that she would fly in her around-the-world attempt. Putnam publicized her trip as a “flying laboratory” to justify the university’s expenditure. Amelia had initially planned on it being a solo venture but she soon realized she needed help. She hired Fred Noonan as her second navigator; he had vast experience in both marine and flight navigation, but he had the reputation of being a heavy drinker.
Amelia made her first attempt on St. Patrick’s Day in 1937; when she went to take off, she lost control of the plane and crashed, severely damaging the aircraft. For the first time in her life, she felt fear. While the plane was being repaired, Amelia decided to change her flight plan to travel west to east, leaving from Miami instead. The change in plans was due to changes in global wind and weather patterns. With only Fred Noonan on board, she took off on June 1. But she left behind crucial equipment, including her parachute, life raft, and wireless antenna.
After numerous stops in South America, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, Amelia and Fred landed in Lae, New Guinea, on June 29, 1937. Amelia had flown for thirty days and twenty-two thousand miles by that point. Physically and mentally she was exhausted. The Electra didn’t take off again until July 2, due to adverse weather conditions. Their intended destination was tiny Howland Island, where Amelia expected to refuel. Radio contact between Amelia and the U.S. Coast Guard was intermittent. While they could hear her, she couldn’t hear them. The Electra never made it, disappearing somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
BOOK: Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women
13.41Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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