The women of Mexico, particularly, interested Amelia. As she went about from place to place, she noted the few sheltered women of the higher classes; the many, bent and worn from the hard labor of the peon; then again the few self-supporting of the middle classes in the city. She would have liked to know more of their strivings and ambitions; she had seen enough, however, to know that reforms were needed in the new order.
“I, for one,” she wrote of the experience, “hope for the day when women will know no restrictions because of sex but will be individuals free to live their lives as men are free—irrespective of the continent or country where they happen to live.”
As in the past, GP had joined AE and guided her through all the festivities. As her manager he had become indispensable to her, particularly where only a man could get certain things done. She was free to live her own life as men are free, but there were times when GP with his bulldozing energy was the only man for the job. Without his help she would not have been able to take off from Mexico.
18. Solo from Mexico to New Jersey
Mexico City was 8,000 feet above sea level. To fly non-stop to Newark, New Jersey, Amelia would need a full load of gasoline; with a full load, she would not be able to take off from the short runway of the military field. George Putnam resolved the dilemma.
Nearby there was the dry bed of Lake Texcoco; if the obstructions were cleared, there would be plenty of room to get three tons of aircraft and fuel into the air. She had landed and taken off under similar conditions at Nopala when she had lost her way; why not now? Amelia looked over the mud-caked flats and agreed it could be done.
GP took over. He organized and supervised the work of Mexican soldiers in getting the dry bed ready for the Vega’s landing and take-off. He pitched in with the men as they leveled hillocks and filled ditches, until they had prepared three miles of makeshift runway. The job done, George then flew to New York to gather weather data from Doc Kimball, in order to advise his wife as to the exact weather conditions she would encounter in her record hop.
The Vega had been flown into the dry bed while AE waited from her husband for the signal to go. Weather permitting was always a condition imposed on any flight. For eight days she waited in Mexico City for the weather to become favorable.
It was not until after midnight on May 8 that GP phoned from New York. “Good visibility,” he said, summarizing Doc Kimball’s analysis, “but the winds are not very favorable.”
At one o’clock that same morning Amelia decided to go. She sent word to the men at Texcoco to fill the Vega’s tanks with 470 gallons of gasoline; then she went back to bed for a few hours’ sleep. At four o’clock she awoke, had breakfast, and drove out to the lake bed.