After college, Earhart became engaged and after the romance was broken off, she composed one of her “poignant and quite good poems,” a talent she never lost.A nurse’s aide during World War I, Earhart met many pilots; although she was studying pre-med at Columbia University, she abandoned her schooling to learn to fly in California.Earhart got her pilot’s license in 1921, and although her father was leery after she was involved in two crashes, “her mother was very enthusiastic and helped her buy a yellow plane.Earhart soon was setting records, but her first truly famous flight was across the Atlantic as a passenger, but first she was interviewed by the sponsor, George Palmer Putnam, the publisher she later married.She became “America’s Flying Sweetheart,” and a tickertape parade was held in honor in New York City. A media star, her bobbed hair set the fashion for other women. She wrote a best selling book about her adventures.“She was like a rock star today,” barnstorming the country to address numerous issues, including aviation and women’s issues. “She told them to strive for goals outside these platitudes, and became one of the most identifiable women of her age,” said Dr. Tonsing.After she married Putnam and the couple settled in North Hollywood, in May 1932, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. “She made many astounding flights,” including piloting the first helicopter; her record garnered her many international honors.A close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and Will Rogers alike, Earhart disappeared forever 65 years ago: “It was the end of an illustrious career. . .when people asked the family in the 1950s if Amelia was a spy, they said her mission was to fly the world and she would not compromise that, ever. She simply crashed and drowned,” within 100 miles of Howland Island.“The importance of Amelia is not her last flight, but her first, and I wonder when she thought about flight. We celebrate her not as a dreamer but a daydreamer. . .her daydreams she took into her hands and lifted into the sky.”
Amelia Earhart: Aviation Museum hears tales of aviatrix from Dr. Tonsing
August 14, 2002
Santa Paula News
The 65th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart was memorialized by the Aviation Museum of Santa Paula, which on July 2nd presented a very special program by her “second cousin twice removed,” according to featured speaker Dr. Ernst F. Tonsing.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThe 65th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart was memorialized by the Aviation Museum of Santa Paula, which on July 2nd presented a very special program by her “second cousin twice removed,” according to featured speaker Dr. Ernst F. Tonsing.“I’m not a pilot, but I did enjoy that drive over Grimes Canyon,” said Dr. Tonsing, a Professor of Religion and Greek at California Lutheran University.The world knew Earhart as an “outstanding aviatrix, the First Lady of the Skies, but she was a woman of many accomplishments.”Although born two weeks after Earhart and co-pilot Fred Noonan presumably crashed into the Pacific near Howland Island, Dr. Tonsing said his relatives were “great letter writers,” who retained their correspondence with Earhart.Also known as Lady Lindy, Earhart piloted a twin-engine Lockheed and “when she went down, we lost a delightful, charming member of our family who was loved by all.”Dr. Tonsing detailed the family’s long roots in America and Earhart’s background, including her mother, the first woman to climb to the top of Pike’s Peak.Born in 1897, Earhart grew up in a stately Atchison, Kansas home built in 1861, now the museum of the 99’s, the organization of female pilots that Earhart helped establish.“There was no clock safe in the house,” as Earhart loved to examine all things mechanical; early on, she realized that boys “had a lot more freedom than girls. . .”
