a man and what you stand for, regardless of party, make me feel that the problems which will come before the country during the next four years will best be solved by your leadership.
The newspapers continued to track Lindbergh's activities, reporting on his flights to further causes in aviation. They also tracked the possible link between Charles and the Morrow daughters. At the end of April, 1929, the New York Times had daily stories on the fact that Mrs. Morrow and her daughter Anne were on their way north by train, traveling from Mexico to New Jersey. What did not receive much attention however, is that Constance Morrow had received a letter at the Milton Academy threatening violence against her unless a ransom was paid. She was also instructed not to tell the police. The amount demanded as payment was $50,000 the same amount which, almost three years later to the day, would be asked for the Lindbergh baby. The official records of the Milton, Massachusetts Police Department reveal that on April 24, 1929 at 10:20 p.m. "A.H. Weed, 150 School Street brought to station a letter received by Constance Morrow, Milton Academy, demanding money under threats of violence. Miss Morrow lives at Hathaway House. Sergeant Shields sent to detail Officer Lee guard Hathaway House tonight. Mr. Weed will bring letters to station tomorrow after he had had a copy of it made."12
Two weeks later a followup letter arrived instructing her to put the $50,000 in a certain size box and to place it in the hole in the wall behind a nearby estate. By this time the police were involved and the whole Morrow family, including future inlaw Lindbergh, knew of their involvement. An actress placed an empty box in the designated hole and the police staked it out. No one picked up the box.
Charles Lindbergh and Anne Spencer Morrow were married May 27, 1929 in a small ceremony at the Englewood, New Jersey home of the Morrows. They left for what they had hoped would be a quiet honeymoon on a yacht moored off the east coast. But Charles Lindbergh was the most famous man in America, and now there was a Mrs. Lindbergh. The media attention focused on the couple. Anne's diaries are particularly revealing about their relationship.
Although there is no doubt she was infatuated, there are many indications that she considered Charles her intellectual inferior. She expressed disgust with his "school boy pranks," which he continued to pull on a regular basis. She also chafed at the role of his faithful companion, there only to service his needs. It did not go unnoticed that Anne was expected to learn new skills in order to fly with Lindbergh and that she was the one carrying equipment from the plane when they landed while he remained the focus of attention.
Lindbergh himself certainly had a strange way of describing his courtship, marriage and relationship with Anne, the person with whom he had decided to spend the rest of his life. In his autobiography he wrote:
On May 27, 1929, I married Anne Spencer Morrow. From the standpoint of both individual and species, mating involves the most important choice of life, for it shapes our future as the past has shaped us. It impacts upon all values obviously and subtly in an infinite number of ways.
One mates not only with an individual but also with that individual's environment and ancestry. These were concepts I comprehended before I was married and confirmed in my observations over the years that followed. 13
This rather clinical description of "finding a mate," contrasts markedly with Anne's poetic descriptions of life, her trials, aspirations, hopes and dreams for the world. Anne Morrow was a deeply sensitive and caring person, who experienced and suffered much in her life.
After their brief honeymoon, Charles and Anne went to work promoting aviation. Charles taught Anne to fly. She also took courses on navigation, learned how to operate a wireless from a plane, and flew with him on many crosscountry flights. Harry Guggenheim announced that he had placed Lindbergh on a retainer for $25,000 for the Guggenheim Aeronautical Foundation so that Lindbergh could promote air travel as a safe, efficient, and effective means of transportation.
In the fall of 1929 Anne's suspected pregnancy was confirmed by her doctor. Nevertheless, Charles expected Anne to continue to accompany him on flights around the country. Lindbergh had announced to the press, with whom he had grown aloof and curt, that he and Anne would break the record for a transcontinental flight between Los Angeles and New York. He had a new plane specially built in California, which he and Anne picked up. They named the plane Sirius, after the bright star in our galaxy.
While in Los Angeles, he introduced Anne to Amelia Earhart at the home of Mary Pickford. Ever since her flight across the Atlantic in 1928 Amelia Earhart's fame as an aviatrix had grown. Newspapers had given her the nickname of "Lady Lindy," a title which she later confided to Anne she did not care for.
Nor, frankly, did she seem to care that much for Charles Lindbergh. After spending about four days with him and Anne, she told her soon to be husband, George Putnam, that Lindbergh was an "odd character." In Putnam's 1930 biography of Earhart, Soaring Wings: A Biography of Amelia Earhart, Putnam recounts Amelia's story about socializing with Anne and Charles that week at the Hollywood home of Jack Maddux.
Anne, the Colonel and AE (Amelia Earhart) were fellow guests at the home of Jack Maddux in Hollywood. One night they were sitting around close to the icebox. Anne and AE were drinking buttermilk. Lindbergh, standing behind his wife munching a tomato sandwich, had the sudden impulse to let drops of water fall in a stream on his wife's shoulder from a glass in his hand.
Anne was wearing a sweet dress of pale blue silk. Water spots silk. AE observed a growing unhappiness on Anne's part but no move toward rebellion, not even any murmur of complaint. AE often said that Anne Lindbergh is the best sport in the world.
Then Anne rose and stood by the door, with her back to the others, and her head resting on her arm. AE thought, with horror, that the impossible had come to pass, and that Anne was crying. But Anne was thinking out a solution to her problem, and the instant she thought it out, she acted upon it. At once and with surprising thoroughness.
With one comprehensive movement she swung around and quite simply threw the contents of her glass of buttermilk straight over the Colonel's blue serge suit. It made a simply marvelous mess!
Odd indeed. Imagine yourself in such a scene with your spouse. What would your reaction be to such a cruel and embarrassing moment, in front of virtual strangers, in someone else's home? Such were the manifestations of Charles Lindbergh's "practical jokes."
It fitted a typical behavior pattern inherent in all of his "jokes." Lindbergh used his "jokes" to control people whose behavior he wished to alter. He did not want the sergeant to bother him, the cadets to harass him, Love to socialize with women or Gurney to drink alcohol. He performed his jokes to punish them for their behaviors.
It is unknown what prompted him to dump a glass of water on his wife's head in front of Amelia Earhart. But it is known that Lindbergh had an extremely sexist view (even by 1929 standards) of women and accorded them little respect. Anne Lindbergh was not only very bright, she was extremely well educated and clearly his intellectual superior.
Amelia Earhart was more than an accomplished flyer. She was a leading American feminist who promoted her political beliefs by demonstrating that women could perform equally to men.
Anne and Amelia were engaged in an intense discussion. If Lindbergh perceived Anne becoming swayed by Amelia's political belief on women, then the water dumping fits a classic pattern.
Shortly thereafter the new plane was completed, and Anne and Charles left for their return flight across the country. Charles was determined to set the new crosscountry speed record in Sirius. A storm system gathered almost immediately after their departure from California, forcing Lindbergh to fly extremely high over the Rockies and throughout the flight. They had no oxygen with them. Anne was seven months pregnant.
At
