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AMELIA
EARHART
ONE EXTRAORDINARY
WOMAN
By
Julie Fricker
"After midnight, the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often
said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight
to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the
aesthetic appeal of flying."
Those words were spoken by Amelia Earhart. who became one of the world's most
celebrated aviators of all time. She was a woman who broke records and charted
new territory. Amelia's efforts and achievements effected how women would
forever be viewed in all of our endeavors. She set a standard for what we could
accomplish if only we persevered beyond the very last obstacle.
Amelia Earhart was the first child born to Edwin Stanton and Amy Otis Earhart on
July twenty-forth, eighteen ninety-seven, in Atchison, Kansas. She and her
sister Muriel, had a difficult childhood which many of us would be able to
relate to. Her father was an alcoholic and had a difficult time holding a job.
As a child her family moved around frequently forcing Amelia and Muriel to miss
a great deal of school.
Amelia's initial plans after graduating high school were to go to college, but
decided instead to study nursing. The aviation industry, was at the time, only
in it's infancy but she attended all the local air shows and was captivated by
the arial stunts, which were quite popular during the nineteen twenties.
After taking a ten minute plane ride, which cost her a dollar, Amelia knew
she had to fly. It took her working several odd jobs for her to earn the one
thousand dollars, she needed to take flying lessons. After ten hours of
instruction and several crashes, Amelia was ready to fly solo. She made her
first solo flight in nineteen twenty-one. Except for a bad landing, the flight
was uneventful. One year later, Amelia had saved up enough money to buy a plane
of her own.
To me, this shows an incredible amount of determination. I've been driving a
semi for eleven years and I still haven't gotten my first truck.
At first, flying was merely a hobby for her, but in nineteen twenty-eight,
Amelia received a call from Captain Hilton H. Railey asking her to join two
other pilots on a flight from America to England. Even though she was only a
passenger on that famous flight, Amelia became the first woman to cross the
Atlantic on a plane. This newsworthy event caught the attention of a publisher
named George Putnam who covered the story. She would eventually marry George
Putnam in nineteen thirty-one.
Amelia's nineteen twenty-eight flight brought her incredible publicity,
and tried hard to live up to the reputation she was building as an aviator of
tremendous distinction. In May of nineteen thirty-two, Amelia crossed the
Atlantic on her own, establishing a new transatlantic crossing record of
thirteen hours, thirty minutes. Amelia was celebrated throughout Europe and the
United States and received a medal from President Hoover. Several years later,
Amelia became the first woman to successfully complete the hazardous flight from
Hawaii to California.
In June nineteen thirty-seven, Amelia began what was to be her final flight.
Amelia and navigator Fred Noonan set out in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra in an
attempt to fly around the world. They departed from Miami, Florida flying to
South America, then across the South Atlantic Ocean to Dakar, Africa. After
crossing the Sahara desert, they flew to Thailand, Singapore, Java, and
Australia. It was after departing Lae, New Guinea that the U.S. Coast Guard lost
contact with the plane. They received a final message on July second, at eight
forty-five in the morning. Amelia's tone was described as frantic.
The United States Navy searched extensively but never did found any trace of the
Amelia, Fred or the plane. The mysterious disappearance of Earhart and her plane
has raised considerable speculation throughout the years. Some believe that she
and Noonan were captured and executed by the Japanese. Others speculate that
President Roosevelt sent Earhart on a secret spy mission. However, none of the
many theories for her disappearance have ever been confirmed. In nineteen
thirty-nine, Earhart's husband published a biography entitled Soaring Wings, in
tribute to Amelia.
I wonder if Amelia Earhart, this pioneer, knew what awaited her when she first
began her journey into history. Did Amelia know where her life's work would take
her? Did she have some portent, some prior knowledge of her own destiny? Was she
aware of her own potential? It is entirely possible that as her achievements
grew, so too did the vision. Perhaps the journey began with a vague dream and
grew into something much bigger than even she had ever anticipated. I don't
believe she harbored unrealistic illusions of grandeur, for this would have
taken Amelia only so far.
The thing to remember about our illusions of self, is that they are just
illusions and tend not to survive in the cold harsh light of reality. We see
ourselves in a different light than the one in which others view us and I
sometimes wonder why.
Do you think that the famous women in history, became so great and rose to such
incredible heights, did so knowing they were different than everyone else? I
vacillate between believing this and believing that fate was somehow thrust upon
them because they were in the right place at the right time. Perhaps when
they first started out they were ordinary hacks like us. Just common duffers
with an idea as to how something could be done a little more efficiently. They
say all it takes is a little ingenuity.
I believe each of these people possessed a desire to make a difference in this
world. They accomplished it by changing our perceptions of time and
circumstance, helped us to reach beyond our individual limitations, taught us to
laugh at the unfortunate situations we found ourselves in and gave others a
foundation with which to build on. The greatest gift they ever gave was to show
us that if we would believed in ourselves, we could accomplish what might once
have been, unimaginable. And that with perseverance, determination and hard
work, we could accomplish great things.
Amelia Earhart became one of the greatest aviators in our history. She had to
work hard to overcome the obstacles which threatened to keep her from achieving
her goal and faced more prejudice than you or I will ever know. Amelia grew up
in a world which had little tolerance for women who wanted to chose their own
path in life.
Women who dared to defy convention were shunned by those in their community. It
was extremely difficult for a woman to take a path of her own choosing and if
they did, it came at a great cost.
In Amelia's case, she wanted only to fly. This was a passion that overshadowed
everything else in her life. She had discovered inside herself, a passion for
flying and by the time she was twenty-four, she had learned. She'd purchased her
first plane at a time when few many women were driving cars not to mention
owning them.
*Another one of Amelia's great accomplishments was to become the first woman to
fly above the fourteen thousand foot level.
*In June of nineteen twenty-eight, she also became the first woman to fly across
the Atlantic.
*In June, two years later, she broke the woman's speed record for flying both
empty and loaded on one hundred kilometers course.
*Amelia set another record in July, nineteen thirty for flying in excess of one
hundred eighty one miles per hour.
Even though her life ended in a storm of controversy and speculation, she still
stands as a hero and a roll model to a great many women. Her goals were obtained
by moving forward one step at a time against all obstacles and intense
criticism. When faced with a particularly stubborn set of circumstances, she
gathered around herself, those who would share her vision. It was perhaps this
network of believers that made all the difference between her success and her
failure.
Reread if you will the quote at the beginning of this article. I do not know if
it is the same for you as for me, but I read Amelia's words and could instantly
appreciate what she must have been feeling. I drive for much the same reasons as
she flew. It was when she felt the most free. I have a feeling it made her feel
whole.
The next three paragraphs are taken directly from my novel Shadows Of The
Mountain. In it, my character tries to describe to her friend an experience she
had late one night. I hope you might see in this sequence, a small glimpse of
what Amelia might have been speaking about.
"Two days later, just after four-thirty in the morning, I decided to take a
short break, if only to get some fresh air. I took the next exit and parked on
the entrance ramp. I sat there for a long time, looking around before deciding
to turn the lights off, shut the truck down, and climb down out of the cab. I
walked away from the truck with the engine ticking peacefully in the cold.
The quiet was an unbroken presence as I stood there, feeling so small and
insignificant, wholly alone, yet not at all lonely. It was a beautiful night,
cool and near windless, save for the smallest of breezes that stirred only the
imagination. The pale, thin sliver of moon offered no resistance to the invasion
of stars. The sky had been sprinkled with a million tiny points of light that
blinked and flashed brilliantly in the deep, inky blackness.
Out on the highway a truck passed by, lending to the night a soft hum before it,
too, was swallowed up by silence. I stood there for some time before I became
aware of the lights of another truck pulling in behind my own. Not wanting to
relinquish this peaceful feeling to anyone else's scrutiny, I climbed back into
the truck and hesitated, for one brief moment, before reluctantly starting the
engine and heading back out onto the highway. I drove on for a few moments and
crossed into New Mexico with the sky turning a pale shade of purple behind me.
I hope you have a great week. Julie Fricker
"You must decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it
is, then stop worrying." Amelia Earhart
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