Missing Pioneer

Amelia Earhart was the first female aviation hero. She was a likable, slender woman with an independent mind. Determined to do anything a man could do, despite the obstacle, she drove a truck and worked at the telephone company to earn the money needed for her first flying lessons. She had the right image and was photogenic enough to be asked to make a sponsored, first female-copiloted flight across the Atlantic. Publisher George Putnam was going to do a book on this and met the young woman to determine her candidacy. Apparently, she was more than photogenic because this meeting ultimately led to their “open marriage” and a relationship that Earhart agreed to only if the “medieval code” of fidelity by either part was not followed. At the age of thirty-nine in 1937 she attempted to circumnavigate the globe. Similar to Magellan’s fate, she got only three-quarters of the way when her plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. What really happened to her is unknown, with theories ranging from being captured by the Japanese and treated as a spy, to her living a life of solitude on a deserted island with a native fisherman. However, it is most probable that no sign of her body was ever recovered because she was eaten by sharks.