MEET AMELIA EARHART—MY COUSIN by Ernst F. Tonsing, Ph.D. Thousand Oaks, California November 10, 2006 I. “COUSIN AMELIA” 1—AE Portrait from Poster I hope to bring to you some words about a person with whom all of you are acquainted, Amelia Earhart. The world knew her as that astounding aviatrix, who, despite the social code for women of her day, dressed in the slacks, shirt and scarf of a pilot, and accomplished amazing feats of endurance and distance in a plane. This is why she is called “The First Lady of the Skies.” The mother of Amelia Earhart and my grandmother were second cousins and were very close. My grandmother, who was a prolific letter writer, said that she and Amelia’s mother corresponded almost weekly. We knew Amelia Earhart just as “cousin Amelia.” A photograph of her, signed when she gave it to my mother and father in June, 1935, stood on top of our piano in our home before it was stolen years ago. I remember seeing it daily when I was young, the picture of a kindly, pleasant face returning my smiles. I want to tell you some things this evening about Amelia Earhart and her family that, perhaps, have never before been said in public outside of the circle of her relatives. For us, it was always “Cousin Amelia,” but then our extended family had many “cousins.” In 1937, after “Lady Lindy” had taken off in the Lockheed twin-engine plane on her last adventure, a flight around the world, the whole attention of the family was concentrated on her progress from continent to continent. When she went down and drowned near the tiny island of Howland in the Pacific, her relatives were brokenhearted. We had lost a delightful, charming, endearing member of the family. Yes, she had shaken hands with presidents and had had tea with kings and queens, but, to us, she was the kind, gentle, refined “cousin” beloved by all. II. AMELIA’S REMARKABLE FAMILY 2—Amy Otis and Edwin Stanton Earhart, 1895 Amelia Earhart was born into a family that was already remarkable. Her father’s father, the Rev. David Earhart, was a courageous pioneer Lutheran pastor, the second Lutheran clergyman to come to the Kansas Territory. He came from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Synod, in 1857, locating in Sumner three miles south of Atchison with the “Free Staters,” who were trying to shift the Territory from slavery to free. He organized churches throughout the eastern and northern parts of the Territory. Every three weeks he made a circuit ride of about one hundred fifty miles, riding in a two wheeled, springless cart drawn by a pony. This he did before there were roads through the wilderness, or bridges over its often-turbulent streams.1 3—Five Generations: Evan Walker Tonsing/Ruth Martin Tonsing/Ida Challiss Martin, Mary Ann Harres Challiss/Maria Grace Harris (taken in the parlor of the Otis home in Atchison 1895, where Amelia Earhart will be born two years later). Amelia Earhart’s mother’s father, Alfred Otis, was just two generations from the fiery James Otis (1725-1783), whose “Writs of Assistance” against the British was called by John Adams the “opening gun of the Revolution,” where America gained its independence. I have a copy of a letter that the mother of Amelia Earhart, Amy (she was also named “Amelia”), wrote to my grandmother, Ruth Tonsing in 1942,2 that their great grandmother, Maria Grace Harres, shown here, lived “early enough to remember being lifted up on her father’s shoulders above the crowd gathered in the streets to see [President George] Washington drive by for the opening of Congress.”3 In this same letter, Amelia’s mother also recalls that their “Grandfather Harres was one of the prominent businessmen of Philadelphia invited to ride on the first railroad train run out of the city” [about 1830]. It only covered about ten miles in this trip, was of course a wood-burner and an open affair, so they could jump out easily if it exploded or went too fast. Their “Great Grandmother never expected to see him again when he left the house to board the train,…”4 My grandmother, Ruth Tonsing, told me that when great grandfather Harres left for this ride, great grandmother Maria Grace had all of the shutters of the house closed and the clocks stopped. She donned black clothes in mourning, since she thought it impossible that one could travel twelve miles an hour and live! Amy Earhart wrote that, “he arrived safely after several hours, and felt there was a future for such a mode of travel.”5 4—Otis Family, Atchison, 1908. 1 H. A. Ott, A History of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Kansas (Topeka, Kansas: F. M. Steves & Sons, pp. 17-19. Rev. Earhart also showed “dogged perseverance,” according to Ott, when he, alone, opposed the founding of a Lutheran Synod in Kansas and Missouri in which, under the pressures of Calvinist legalism, fundamentalism and low opinion of the Sacraments, the historic Lutheran confessions would be altered. Through his strong convictions, integrity and persuasion, he was able to shift the direction of the organizing convention, and the unaltered Augsburg Confession was adopted. Ibid., pp. 27- 29. 2 Amy Otis Earhart to Ruth Martin Tonsing, Berkeley, California, April 8, 1942. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. The father of Amelia’s mother, Alfred Otis, was elected judge of the United States District Court, was president of the Atchison Savings Bank, and was Chief Warden of Trinity Episcopal Church.6 He loved adventure and wanted to see everything thoroughly. He explored California in the mid-1800’s by horse carriage and stagecoach, probably passing through what became a century and a half later San Diego, San Juan Capistrano, Long Beach and Los Angeles on the “El Camino Real,” that is, just a few miles from where we are today. He even sailed the almost eight hundred miles down the California coast, stopping in various ports. Amelia’s mother was sorry that her father did not live to see Amelia fly. She wrote that, “I feel sure Amelia would have had him in the air and enjoying it, had he been here when she began to fly, but Mother might have waited longer to take to the air…”7 5—Amy Otis and Ed Earhart Amelia’s mother, too, Amy Otis Earhart, was also remarkable. What is not generally known is that she was the first woman to have climbed to the top of Pike’s Peak in Colorado, an altitude of 14, 110 feet. III. AMELIA EARHART’S YOUTH 6—Otis/Earhart House, Atchison, Kansas Amelia was born in 1897 (not 1898 as some biographers have it) in Atchison, Kansas, in the home of her grand parents, Judge Alfred and Amelia Otis, where her mother had gone for her “confinement.” The high bluffs of the Missouri River as it passes through Atchison, there were two dwellings, with the grand house of Dr. William C. Challiss, the first physician in the Territory of Kansas, on the south, and, the white, brick and frame “Gothic” Otis house to the north. It has seven bedrooms, and has been owned since 1984 by the “Ninety-Nines,” the women’s flying organization of which Earhart was one of the founders. She was born in the upstairs southwest room. The room in which she slept, however, is on the north east, facing the Missouri River that flows below the high bluffs. This house in Atchison is now open to visitors, and, in that room one can see the oak, rolltop desk given to the museum by her sister, Muriel, her hope chest, a formal gown and a bathing suit she had worn. 7—AE in Baptismal Gown. Shortly after she was born, the infant Amelia Earhart was brought to Trinity Episcopal Church to be baptized. Here she is on that day, wearing her long, baptismal gown. 8—Amelia and Muriel Earhart as Infants. 6 http://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/childhd/main.htm (March 22, 2001). 7 Amy Otis Earhart to Ruth Martin Tonsing. Amelia was named after her mother, Amelia, always called “Amy,” Otis Earhart, and her two grandmothers, Amelia Harres Otis and Mary Wells Earhart. Her younger sister, Murial, however, had difficulty in pronouncing her name, so she received the nickname, “Meelie.” Nicknames abounded in the families. Amelia’s playmates, who lived several doors down Terrace Street, were Lucy and Kathryn Challiss, which Amelia and Muriel called “Tootie” and “Katchie.”8 9—AE and Cousins on Terrace Street, Atchison. Alongside this house was a street, another house, and then the large, brick, Italianate home of my grandmother, Ruth Tonsing, daughter of Colonel John A. Martin, a Civil War hero, early Mayor of Atchison, and later Governor of the State of Kansas.9 When Amelia’s parents moved to Atchison from Kansas City, Kansas, in 1898, Amelia spent the summers with her parents in Kansas City, and the winters in Atchison, where she would run over to play with my older aunts and uncles.10 I was told by my grandmother that she liked to sit on the swing seat on the front porch and make it go higher and higher, up over the porch rails. Another cousin, Beatsie Challiss Laws, recalls that Amelia “baby-sat” my father and his twin sister, Ida, racing as fast as she could, pushing the double baby carriage up and down North Terrace Street, alarming the family who expected to see the babies fly out of the vehicle! Even when a very young girl, Amelia was interested in anything mechanical.