Edwin S. Earhart had been born a few miles from Atchison, the youngest of twelve children. His father David and his mother Mary had labored many long hours on the tough Kansas sod, only to encounter crop failure, drought, dust storms, and grasshopper plagues. David Earhart had been a missionary minister for the Lutheran Church, and though he had traveled sometimes sixty miles to preach a sermon, his congregation had never numbered more than twenty. During the great drought of 1860 his family would have starved if David had not received two gifts of money, totaling $250. Thereafter, to insure some income, however small, David became a schoolteacher. Eventually he was named as one of the regents of the state college at Lawrence. Certainly the greatest figure in the Earhart family was David’s uncle, John Earhart, who had been a private in General Washington’s army and was killed in the battle of Germantown. All twelve children were proud of Uncle John, a hero.
Edwin Earhart received his law degree from the University of Kansas in 1895 and the same year married Amy Otis. He worked for the railroad as a claims agent and his job kept him from home and family for days, often weeks, at a time. Grandfather Otis, then a judge of the district court, had often advised his son-in-law to open up a law office in Atchison, but Edwin was stubborn. He liked the claims work and he liked to travel.
Amelia M. Earhart was born July 24, 1898, at the Otis home in Atchison, where her parents were living at the time. Since her father’s job with the railroad kept him moving from place to place as he settled claims or went to Topeka to plead a case before the Supreme Court, and her mother often accompanied him on the longer trips to Iowa and Illinois, Amelia and her sister Muriel spent most of their childhood living with the Otises.
As a child, Amelia was an irrepressible tomboy. “I was a horrid little girl,” she said about staying with her grandparents, “and I do not see how they put up with me, even part time.” A harsh judgment upon herself, but she did cause her mother and grandmother many moments of fret and anxiety about her unorthodox behavior.
3. Halifax and Trepassey
AE grinned as she lay on the cabin floor of the Friendship, thinking that this flight across the Atlantic was perhaps the most unorthodox happening in any girl’s life; then, as Bill Stultz throttled back and nosed the plane into a steep glide, she awoke quickly from her reverie, grabbing at the tie ropes with both hands so that she wouldn’t slide forward. They were going down through the thick fog that had developed, for a closer look at check points on the coast. The plane leveled off at 500 feet. Land was to the left through a clearing in the fog.
It was Halifax Harbor, halfway to Trepassey, the Atlantic take-off point, and halfway up the Nova Scotia coast line. Bill circled the harbor twice and slipped expertly down to a landing. The natives swarmed to the shore, and some of them climbed into dories to form a welcoming party. The fog had proved too thick for the fliers, much too thick for visual navigation.
Bill and Slim went ashore to get weather reports. Amelia, meanwhile, remained in the cabin and ate an orange, one of several carefully provided by GP. Mournful sounds of a foghorn punctuated the stillness on the water. A light wind sprang up, and AE hoped that it would help the take-off from the harbor.
Stultz and Gordon returned with discouraging news of rain and clouds for the rest of the flight to Trepassey. Nevertheless, because they had lost an hour by the change in time, they decided to try to make it. Slim cranked up, then discovered a broken primer. They still wanted to go. They took off at 2:30 P.M., but in vain.
It was a hopeless task to try to navigate along the coast. The rain and the fog were too thick and heavy. Disappointed, they turned around and went back to Halifax. They did not want to run the risk of blind flying.