Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was born July 24,1897. She grew up with her grandfather who was a former lawyer. Her mother and father were fickle, always breaking up and getting back together. Their being alcoholics didn't help. Amelia's only playmate as a child was her sister Muriel. Both were tomboys and loved to climb trees, go sledding, and hunt rats with a rifle. When Amelia was ten she saw her first plane. She didn't think of becoming a pilot then.

After graduating from Hyde Park high school she went straight to college at Ogontz school in Pennsylvania. After college she became a nurse's aide. By 1928 she was a social worker in Boston. A little later she became interested in planes. Amelia decided she would take flying lessons right away. After lessons Amelia purchased a biplane. She named it Canary because of the yellow color. When Amelia later participated in competitive flying she won 3rd place.

Amelia was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928. She wrote about that, called "20 hours 40 minutes." In 1932 a lot of things happened to Amelia. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She also married George Putnam. In the same year Congress gave her the Distinguished Flying Cross and she wrote another book called "The Fun of It."

In 1935 she flew solo across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to California. In March of 1937 she made her first attempt to fly around the world. Her plane crashed on takeoff in Hawaii. She tried again in July. On July 2nd she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared somewhere between New Guinea and Howland Island. They probably ran out of fuel but there are many theories about their disappearance. Some think she may have been a spy or been captured by the Japanese because this was just before World War Two.

Amelia Earhart was a very brave person. She did many extraordinary things like doing things no other woman had done before. She did many things for women's rights by being the first President of the Ninety-Nines, a group of women pilots. She is a good example of someone who never gives up. This example will help me in the future to not give up, even though things get tough.