The Life of Earhart - Ross School – Blogs

The Life of Earhart
Rebecca Hamilton
Table Of Contents
Opening Haiku
Timeline + Footnotes
1903: Inside of Bogie
1906: Rifle for Christmas
1907: Bob vs. Horatius
1908: Defiance
1909: It’s Just Like Flying
1910: James Ferocious
1912: Manna
1913: Edwin Stanton Earhart
1917: Nurse Earhart
1919: Chronic Sinusitis
1920: Neta Snook
1923: Pilot’s License Picture
1924: The Divorce
1928: George Putnam
1931: Prenuptial Agreement
1933: Eleanor and Amelia
1935: The Records
1936: Lockheed Model 10 Electra
1937: 1.) The Spy
2.) Airplane
3.) Under the Sea
4.) The Line Led to Gardner Island
1982: The New Jersey Housewife
Questions on Questions
Final Haiku
Opening Haiku
She was a bad ass
Did her plane run out of gas?
What a mystery
Amelia Earhart Timeline
July 24, 1897- Amelia Earhart is born in Atchison, Kansas. 1
1908- Earhart moves to Iowa and sees her first airplane. 2
1914- Amelia moves to Chicago. 3
1916- After attending six different schools, Earhart graduates high school (Hyde
Park High School in Chicago) on time. 4
1917- The Red Cross trains Earhart as a volunteer nurse during World War I in
Toronto, Canada. 5
1918-1919- Amelia develops a serious condition called chronic sinusitis (suffers
from major headaches) while she works as a nurse. 6
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amelia Earhart is the daughter of the German American, Samuel “Edwin” Stanton. Her name comes
from her two grandparents and is dubbed Meely. When she is six, her neighbors have chickens that
escape. She makes up a trap out of a crate, a lid, and a stick. Despite her wishes, Amelia is instructed by
her mother to return the chickens.
1
For her eleventh birthday her family goes to the Iowa State Fair. Amelia is more amused with the
pony-rides and the merry-go-rounds. It is her father Edwin that is immediately fascinated with the
plane that is on display. Amelia writes later in her book: "It was a thing of rust and wood and not at all
interesting..."
2
Amelia’s father struggles with alcoholism for years. During this time her family is in financial trouble.
Her mother decides it would be best if she moves herself and two daughters to Chicago. There she
attends the high school she will later graduate from.
3
In her high school yearbook, Amelia is described as “the girl in brown who walks alone.” This same
year her mother inherits a large inheritance. Amelia hopes to attend Bryn Mawr, but her mother
decides it’s best if she goes to a finishing school called Ogontz. There she becomes fascinated with the
role of women in a male-dominate world.
4
Her sister Muriel attends school in Toronto, Canada. While on Christmas vacation, Amelia travels to
Toronto to visit and sees veterans from World War I on the streets. She decides to drop out of school
and become a nurse to serve the veterans of World War I. She works in the Spadina Military Hospital
in Toronto until the end of the war. She works mainly as someone who gives support to the wounded
soldiers. It is through one of the veterans that she is asked to go to the Canadian Air Force base and
watch the planes take off. These planes are different than the ones Amelia is used to seeing. The planes
are equipped with skis so they could take off from the snow.
5
Nearly half a million people die this year from the flu. Troops coming back to North America from
World War I carries over the disease. Amelia contracts this from working in the hospital. She has to
quit her job as a nurse and is bed-ridden for the next year. She spends most of that time working to get
into Columbia University in New York City. By the fall she is fully recovered and enters Columbia with
the intent on becoming a doctor. While there, she receives a reputation of being a prankster. Her most
infamous prank is taking a photograph of herself on top of the Columbia Library with the Manhattan
skyline in the back. Although she does well at Columbia, she decides she wants to move back with her
parents who are living together once again in Los Angeles.
6
1920- Earhart becomes a big supporter of women’s rights and equal
opportunities in the field of aviation. 7
1921- Amelia receives flying lessons from Neta Snook, a female pilot. 8
1921- Earhart purchases her first plane after her flying lessons. 9
1923- Amelia Earhart is issued her pilot’s license, becoming the 16th woman to
due so. 10
1924- Earhart’s parents divorce. 11
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To quote from her autobiography, she says, “"Of course, they are as different as individuals from any
other group. There are slim ones and plump ones and quiet ones and those who talk all the time.
They're large and small, young and old, about half the list is married and many of these have children.
In a word, they are simply thoroughly normal girls and women who happen to have taken up flying
rather than golf, swimming, or steeple chasing."
7
Neta Snook is one of the first women to graduate from the Curtiss School of Aviation. She is also the
first woman to run an aviation business. Amelia pays $1 in Liberty Bonds for every minute they are in
the air. She shows up to her first flying lesson dressed in horseback-riding attire. In the early stages of
her flying career, Amelia crashes while trying to clear eucalyptus trees during take off. Amelia works in
a telephone office so she can pay for the lessons. Shortly after saving enough money, Amelia buys her
first airplane that summer. She predicts that the airline industry would grow exponentially. She says
that one day planes will be able to carry 10 to 12 people, have a covered cockpit, and run on schedules
much like trains do.
8
Amelia uses all of her savings and some money from her parents to buy a $2,000 Kinner Airster. This
particular model is new to the market and largely untested. It is smaller and faster than the other
planes that are on the market. She decides she wants to paint the plane yellow and calls it “The
Canary.” This takes place right after her plans for finishing her education has failed. She decides that
she will become a pilot instead.
9
Earhart participates in an opening show for the new Glendale, California, airport. A license to fly is
not required by the US Government at the time. Though not necessary in order to fly, she does receive
a license from the National Aeronautic Association. On May 16th, she passes the test and receives
Certificate Number 6017. In order to pass she has to do a series of maneuvers in the sky. During this
time, engine failures are commonplace, so she has to go up to 4,921 feet, stop the engine, and land
within 492 feet of a predetermined area all without restarting the engine. She becomes the first woman
to receive this certificate, a mere two years after beginning her flying lessons.
10
Amelia Earhart sells the first plane she bought which she named “The Canary” and the second plane
she bought, a Kinner, immediately after her parent’s divorce. She buys a car that she names The Yellow
Peril and drives back to Boston to live with her mother. Once in Boston, Amelia wants to peruse
engineering, but the universities around Boston only offer degrees in engineering and science to men.
Amelia decides to teach English to immigrants. She eventually lands a job at the Dension House- a
settlement house. The public notices her work, specifically when she gets the chance to fly a plane over
the city as an advertisement for the Dension House.
11
1928- Teaming up with George Putnam (publicist, and later husband), Earhart
publishes her first book, 20 Hrs. 40 Min. 12
1931- After denying George Putnam’s marriage proposal six times, Earhart
agrees on the conditions that the unity is an equal partnership. 13
1932- Flying in a Lockheed Vega 5B, Earhart is the first woman to fly across the
Atlantic. That same year she wins the Army Air Corps Distinguished Flying Cross,
the Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society, and the Harmon Trophy as
America’s Outstanding Airwoman. 14
1934- Earhart launches her own clothing line. 15
1936- Purdue University provides a Lockheed twin-engine airplane for Amelia to
fly around the world. 16
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
While preparing for a flight from America to England, she meets George Palmer Putnam. For this
trip, Amelia is just the passenger, but she is still the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean via
airplane. The airplane is named “The Friendship.” The amount of time it takes to get from
Newfoundland to Wales is 20 hours and 40 minutes. This was the inspiration for her book in which she
named 20 Hours, 40 Minutes, Our Flight in the Friendship. In addition to writing this book, she also
writes aviation articles for the magazine company, Cosmopolitan Magazine.
12
Amelia Earhart reluctantly agrees to marry George Putnam after the sixth time he asks. She writes
him a letter before fully agreeing to marry him, a sort of prenup of its time. The letter states that she is
reluctant to marry, because she has built up her entire career on being an independent woman. She
demands that they do not interfere with each other’s work, and that they keep their married life private
from the public. At the end of the letter she states that if they are not happy in a year from now that he
will allow them to separate without argument.
13
Charles Lindbergh attempts to make a transatlantic flight five years prior to Earhart’s attempt.
Amelia was dubbed “Lady Lindy” for attempting this transatlantic flight. She becomes the first person
ever to fly across the Atlantic Ocean twice. She begins her flight in Newfoundland, Canada, at Harbor
Grace. A couple hours into take off her controls freeze, and the engine catches fire. She is forced to land
in Londonderry, Ireland, instead of her intended destination of the French field where Charles
Lindbergh landed. Although her flight was plagued with misfortune, she is still given many awards,
and a London newspaper states “…her glory sheds its luster on all womanhood.”
14
Amelia becomes a record breaker once again by being the first person to fly solo from California to
Hawaii. Again later that year she becomes the first person to fly from Mexico City to Newark, New
Jersey. After breaking two records a few months shy of each other, she decides that she wants to try
something new again. This time it is separate from aviation; she launches her own clothing line. The
line is intended for “the woman who lives actively.” She catches the attention of the first lady, Eleanor
Roosevelt, by whom she is invited to the White House and develops a relationship with the first lady.
15
For her 39th birthday, Purdue University gives Amelia a Lockheed Electra 10E airplane. It is the first
plane that can fly 4,500 miles nonstop. That September she flies from California to Purdue University
with her husband and mechanic, Bo McKneely, as a passenger. This is the first time Amelia flies
without a more experienced pilot. The Electra 10E is different than the other planes Earhart has flown.
This has new landing gear that Earhart is not used to using. During a test flight, she crashes trying to
land, destroying the landing gear. It takes several months for the plane to be repaired. During the
months while the plane is being fixed, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan plan their trip to navigate
around the world.
16
July 2, 1937- Amelia and her copilot, Fred Noonan, take off from Lae, New
Guinea in an attempt to circumnavigate the world. 17
Anytime after July 2, 1937- Earhart and Noonan are presumed dead.
January 5, 1939- A Los Angeles court declares Earhart legally dead.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fred Noonan and Amelia Earhart take off from Florida with plans to land in California. Once in
California they take off across the Atlantic and land in Dakar, Senegal. From Dakar they fly to India.
After India they travel down by Southeast Asia and Australia. After Australia they land in Lae, New
Guinea. Their next destination is Howland Island. Howland Island is a two-mile long by half-mile wide
island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. About 20 hours into the flight a ship near the island receives
a radio call from Earhart. After not arriving on the island, President Roosevelt orders nine naval ships
and about 4,000 men to search the waters near the island. The Electra plane and the two-person crew
are never found.
17
Inside of Bogie
So to get started you need elaborate maps,
a made-up world, and imaginary journeys.
Then find the nearest abandoned carriage,
a couple of friends, and go to another world.
Next— create shadowy play creatures,
villains, and become the super hero.
In the end you should be hoarse from screaming,
damp with sweat, and dusty from cobwebs.
The end of Amelia’s imaginary game.
!
1903!
Rifle for Christmas
!
!
!
When Amelia Earhart was nine-years-old, she received a .22 caliber Hamilton
rifle from her father as a Christmas present. Around that time, she also
discovered that rats near the Panama Canal were spreading the bubonic plague.
She came to the conclusion that rats in Atchison, Kansas, must also spread the
plague. She made it her mission to kill all the rats in Atchison, saving the city
from the horrible disease. While in her grandparent’s barn, she shot and
wounded the first rat she saw. Being the heroic child she was, she adhered to the
hunter’s code of leaving no wounded “game” alive and patiently waited for the rat
to reappear. This made her over an hour late for dinner and resulted in the
confiscation of her rifle.
!
1906!
Bob vs. Horatius
When Amelia Earhart was in 6th grade she was preparing
to compete in her school’s prize speaking contest.
For three weeks, she memorized Macaulay’s Horatius
in an effort to out preform her classmates.
The day of the competition Amelia was on her way to school
when they saw their grandmother’s friend, Mrs. Colby.
Mrs. Colby owned a horse named Bob
which she allowed Amelia and her sister Muriel to ride.
Amelia and Muriel were excited when she asked
if they wanted to ride him after school.
Mrs. Colby told the girls that Bob has been left unattended
since her houseman left suddenly to visit his sick aunt.
Amelia and Muriel already had carrots packed in their lunchboxes
and decided it was best to check up on Bob before school.
When they arrived at the barn, they found the horse had
no food or water and his shoes were in need of repair.
The girls hurried to get fresh water, new hay, and raw oats,
keeping in mind that Amelia had to give her speech first period.
After Bob was tended to, the girls ran as quickly as they could
to try to make it to school on time, but Amelia arrived just in time
to hear her teacher announce her classmate as the winner.
Much in Amelia Earhart fashion she commented,
“I'm glad to know Horatius anyway, and it's fun
to say it whether I get a prize or not."
!
1907!
Defiance
In 1908 it was very clear how a young lady should act.
There were strict rules that outlined every which way
how a young lady should act in every possible situation.
This even included proper posture for sledding in the snow.
Boys were allowed to ride sleds lying down, but the girls
were expected to sit up in a ladylike posture, with backs straight.
Breaking the confining chains of misogynist sledding rules,
Amelia was fonder of the lying down method of sleighing.
One time, she was going down one of the steepest hills in town
when a man’s junk cart, pulled by a horse came out of a side street.
The hill was so icy she was unable to stop or turn in another direction.
Before she knew what had happened, she cleared the space between
the horse’s front legs and back legs and made it safely off the hill.
Thinking back on the experience, she recalls what it would have been
like if she acted more ladylike:
“Had I been sitting up, either my head or the horse's ribs
would have suffered in contact -- probably the horse's ribs."
!
1908!
It’s Just Like Flying
While staying in her family home in Kansas City
The dog days of summer began to creep in
But Amelia never let anything stop her from enjoying life
She gathered her sister and a neighborhood boy
and began constructing a homemade roller coaster
Collecting materials from around the house
They managed to create a track from two pieces of ply boards,
and they made the car from an empty wooden crate.
The boards were placed on a shed two feet above the ground,
and the car was greased with lard from the kitchen.
Amelia was the first to try it, before take off
she took a deep breath in and as she went down
the wood began to splinter and the car fell right off the trestle.
She got up and without a second thought exclaimed,
“…It’s just like flying!”
!
1909!
James Ferocious
Every good childhood story includes a childhood pet
Amelia Earhart is no exception to this rule.
Her dog, James Ferocious, is certainly an exception though.
He was unlike any other dog in the neighborhood.
James Ferocious was, well, ferocious. Especially towards
the neighborhood boys. He was kept tied to a shed
just in case any of the neighborhood kids came a little too close.
Well, one day, a group of boys did get a little too close and as it goes
James Ferocious barked and twisted until he broke free from the shed.
The dog ran after the perpetrators with all the might in his body,
leaving the boys with no option, but to hop up on the shed.
The commotion woke Amelia up from an afternoon nap
and she looked outside to see what was going on.
Without a second thought, she ran outside and in her most confident tone
reprimanded James Ferocious for knocking over his water bowl,
disregarding the group of boys huddled together on the top of her shed.
Boys will be boys, James will be ferocious, and Amelia will be Amelia.
!
1910!
Manna
(n.) [in the Bible] the substance miraculously supplied as food to the
Isrealites in the wilderness
Amelia Earhart never had much interest in religion,
yet she was baptized and attended church as a child.
She did find interest in the idea of manna.
In an attempt to recreate it, she bought flour and sugar.
The idea was to make a small, white, round-shaped miracle.
One evening, she spent hours mixing together
different amounts of sugar and flour and water.
She put the ingredients in a pan over a fire
and without any notice, the floury mixture
caught on fire, exploded, and settled into a floury ash.
The exploded manna was a sign that she should stop,
she decided.
!
1912!
!
Edwin Stanton Earhart
Ten-year-old Amelia Earhart was more fascinated
by the merry-go-round and a peach basket paper hat
than the airplane at the Iowa State Fair.
It was her father who took an interest in the plane
much like he took an interest in alcohol.
By the time Amelia was fourteen
she watched her dad’s interest turn into addiction
and for one month, she lost her dad all together
when he checked himself into a sanatorium
in an effort to rehabilitate himself.
Sixteen-year-old Amelia prepared to move
to Chicago with her mom and her sister
leaving behind her father and the addiction
he just can’t seem to shake.
Her father taught her how to be independent.
She learned from a young age that she couldn’t
count on him, so she learned to count on herself.
!
1913!
Nurse Earhart
!
!
!
During World War I, Amelia Earhart left college and moved to Toronto, Canada,
where her sister Muriel was living. While there she took a course in Red Cross
First Aid and was hired as a nurses aid at Spadina Military Hospital. She
describes her time there:
“There for the first time I realized what the World War meant. Instead of new
uniforms and brass bands, I saw only the result of four years' desperate struggle;
men without arms and legs, men who were paralyzed and men who were blind..."
It was during her time in Toronto that she discovered her passion for social work.
Her time as a nurse allowed her to get a job working at the Denison House in
Boston, Massachusetts. The Denison House was designed to help immigrants and
the urban poor. Amelia was in charge of adult education and supervised the
young girls education program.
!
1917!
Chronic Sinusitis
Growing up in the early 1900s
couldn’t have been easy in the first place—
There was no Internet, no smartphones, no microwaves,
bottled water wasn’t even invented yet.
But then you add having chronic sinusitis
and I can’t even imagine the struggle.
In case you were wondering what chronic sinusitis is
let me paint you a clear picture—
When the lining of your sinuses become blocked
pesky germs get in there and have pesky germ babies
which grow up and turn into a raging infection.
The signs and symptoms include (but are not limited to):
facial pain
loss of smell
throbbing pain behind the eyes
nasal discharge (thick, green, and/or yellow)
dental pain
bad breath
Now that’s just the symptoms of regular sinusitis
Chronic sinusitis occurs when those symptoms
last eight weeks or longer
I can only wonder what Amelia Earhart did during
those weeks bedridden without Netflix.
!
1919!
Neta Snook
Neta Snook is a pioneer who inspired a pioneer
She’s more than just Amelia Earhart’s teacher—
She was the first woman aviator in Iowa,
first woman student at the Curtiss Flying School in Virginia,
first woman to start up her own aviation business,
and first woman to run a commercial airfield.
Behind Amelia Earhart, there is this trailblazer
that paved the way for others to follow.
She is the one who taught Amelia Earhart what she knows.
!
1920!
Pilot’s License Picture
!
1923!
The Divorce
The year is 1924
Her father is an alcoholic
and her mother is fed up
it’s time for a road trip
Amelia and her mom
California to Massachusetts
3,100 miles
But mother hates the West
and father hates the East
!
!
1924!
George Putnam
George and Amelia’s close relationship did not go unnoticed.
Especially not by Dorothy Putnam, George’s wife,
who divorced him in December of 1929.
Which just so happens to be one year after Earhart broke it off
with her fiancée, Samuel Chapman.
The summer of 1928 Amelia and George spent a lot of time
together working on and promoting Amelia’s first book.
The next thing you know the two newly single co-workers
fall for each other and after six proposals Amelia finally agrees
to marry George but there are conditions.
Earhart wrote a pre-nup that would make Kanye West proud.
She got to keep her last name and if they didn’t want to be
together any longer, they had no obligations to each other.
After George agreed, they married in 1931 in Connecticut
and lasted up until she disappeared in 1937.
!
1928!
Prenuptial Agreement
!
!
!
1931!
Eleanor and Amelia
!
!
!
Amelia Earhart was invited to the White House in April of 1933 to meet Eleanor
and Franklin Roosevelt. Over the course of the night, Amelia and Eleanor began
talking about the views of Washington from an airplane at night. Eleanor was so
fascinated by the description that she had to see it for herself. After dinner,
Eleanor and Amelia were off to the airport (with many objections from the secret
service). The two of them flew over Washington in their evening gowns. Eleanor
was so taken aback by the experience that she too wanted to get her pilot’s
license. Over the course of the next four years, Amelia and Eleanor developed a
strong friendship. Amelia helped Eleanor get her student pilot’s license just a
week before her disappeared.
!
1933!
The Records
October 22, 1922, broke the altitude record
Fall of 1928, published book, toured, and lectured
August 1929, in the First Women’s Air Derby placed third
June 25, 1930, speed record 100 kilometers with no load
July 5, 1930, speed record 181.18 mph over 3k course
April 8, 1931, autogiro record 18,415 feet
May 20-21, 1932, fly solo across the Atlantic—
Awarded National Geographic Society’s gold medal
and Distinguished Flying Cross
Fall of 1932, elected president of the Ninety Nines
August 24-35, 1932 nonstop transcontinental speed record
July 7-8, 1933, broke the record she broke in August
January 11, 1935, first person to ever fly solo across Pacific
!
1935!
!
Lockheed Model 10 Electra
It was the best of the best—
the first all aluminum aircraft,
the new retractable landing gear,
the range was more than 4,000 miles,
a cruising speed of 190 miles per hour,
and could travel 19,400 feet above sea level.
Amelia Earhart’s Model 10E was modified—
She needed to travel longer distances so
six more fuel tanks were added to equal 12 all together,
a Wester Electric radio was put in for communication
and a Bendix radio direction finder installed.
All the extra technology was made to insure that
everything would go as smoothly as possible.
!
1936!
!
The Spy
Amelia Earhart was the perfect candidate—
Best friends with Eleanor Roosevelt,
flying over the White House together
all dolled up in their evening gowns.
A celebrity of her time even before
the widely publicized plan
to circumnavigate the world.
She was a regular in the White House
What if while she was there she was told
to fake an emergency landing in the Pacific
so the U.S. could search the waters on her behalf.
After dinner with the President,
she changed the direction in which she would go,
a more difficult journey, thanks to trade winds.
She was now going east instead of going west
Japan would be at the end of her trip.
The Japanese would never think
Franklin Delano Roosevelt would send
a public figure and his wife’s best friend
to risk her life collect information about
Japanese military movement in the Pacific.
As planned Amelia went down in the Pacific
and the Japanese allowed the US to launch
a massive naval, air, and land search.
Everything was going according to plan
up until they really couldn’t find any trace of her.
For Eleanor the wreck meant the loss of her friend.
But for her husband, it was a possible pre World War II
espionage plot gone wrong.
!
1.)!1937!
Airplane
O bird weighted down by so little gas.
!
2.)!1937!
Under the Sea
Ground control received radio signals from the plane
but ground control could not respond back
and Betty Brown, some lady in Florida,
claimed to listen to distress calls for over an hour
My Uncle Jim claims to have had breakfast
with Elvis early last week –however,
My Uncle Jim is afraid to fly
on a commercial jet planemuch less a Lockheed Model 10 Electra
that weighs 6,454 pounds
plus supplies
plus passengers.
!
3.)!1937!
The Line Led to Gardner Island
Earhart and Noonan took a wrong turn
and ended up running out of fuel over
Gardner Island just south of Howland
A woman’s shoe was found but
was discovered to be just the wrong size
to be Amelia’s glass slipper
Archeologists conclude artifacts found
are consistent with a woman of the 1930s
and aluminum of a Lockheed Model 10 Electra
The last few vocal radio messages
recorded Earhart calling out the coordinates
“…line 157, 337… north and south”
The line led to Gardner Island.
!
4.)!1937!
The New Jersey Housewife
“I am not Amelia Earhart”
Irene Craigmile Bolam claims to be
just a housewife from Monroe Township, New Jersey
but she refused to give fingerprints
and when she passed her body was turned to ash
Dying like Amelia, a mystery
And her husband –Irene’s husband,
Guy Bolam, might have been a spy for MI6
British secret intelligence,
supplying the government with foreign intelligence.
Guy and Irene spent time in Kobe, Japan
one theory has Amelia and Fred being picked
up by the Japanese.
Irene was even a member of a kimono club there.
Although the smile lines don’t match
and the jawlines don’t overlap
there’s always a chance that
Amelia came back as a New Jersey housewife.
!
1982!
Questions on Questions
What happened on July 2, 1937? Was Amelia Earhart under prepared to fly
across the world? Why did she change her direction from going west to going
east? Did she spend too much time advertising herself and too little time
preparing? How did one of the most experienced navigators unable to locate
Howland Island? What was the reason behind not creating a mayday call? Did
she go up to the Japanese-controlled Marshall Islands? Did FDR really use her as
an excuse so he could search the Japanese controlled waters? Were she and Fred
Noonan taken in as a political prisoner by the Japanese? Did the Japanese kill
them? Beheaded? Shot? Buried alive? Or were they kept alive? Did Amelia return
to the United States and take a fake name, Irene Bolam? Did she really go from
being a leader to being a New Jersey housewife? Why did Irene Bolam never
agree to give a fingerprint sample? Was there a miscalculation on the amount of
fuel that would be necessary? Did she really go down in the Pacific Ocean? Why
wouldn’t she radio that she was going down? Was there a cover up by the United
States Government about where she went down? Could it be that it was the
government’s fault for her disappearance? Were they just covering up their own
mistakes? How did a woman all the way in Florida hear Amelia’s distress calls?
Was Betty Brown lying? Why wasn’t the most sophisticated technology not able
to pick up her calls, but a regular radio could? Could the government have
changed the radio logs? Or is it possible that the government isn’t actually
corrupt? Could she have been like Tom Hanks in cast away? Could she have gone
down on Gardener Island and perished from lack of water? Why wouldn’t there
be a search on surrounding islands for her? How come the sole of a ladies shoe
and plane parts found on that island? What are the chances that shoe was a
different size than Amelia’s shoe? Why is no one as concerned about Fred Noon?
Why does no one ever mention that he disappeared too? Why is it ingrained in
the history of the Marshall Island’s that Amelia was found there? How come there
is postage stamps depicting the plane crash? Why did a soldier in Saipan during
World War 2 find a briefcase with all of Amelia’s belongings in it? Why did she
have a briefcase with her? If the soldier gave the briefcase to his superior, why is
there no evidence that it existed? Was it just lost along the way? If she was on
another island, how were there distress calls three days after she went down?
Why could the people on the ground hear her, but she couldn’t hear the people?
What interfered with her being able to hear the people on the ground? Did FDR
ask Amelia to help him while she was over at the White House? Were there secret
meetings no one knew about? Did they exploit her celebrity status to trick the
Japanese into thinking she wasn’t a spy? Was Eleanor Roosevelt mad that FDR
did this? Did FDR exploit Amelia and Eleanor’s friendship? Could it be a
coincidence that this was right before the World War 2 espionage plot? Is that
why she changed flight direction? So she would go down at the end of her flight
instead of the beginning? Why would Amelia agree to do something so
dangerous? Was she trying to be a good American? Did she like all the publicity
that came with it? If she was such a private person, why did she agree to allow her
husband, George Putnam- the publicist, publicize her journey? Why haven’t they
found any remains of anything? Where did she go?
Final Haiku
Her life has ended
The mystery has begun
It was a good one