February 4, 1902 – Charles Lindbergh, the first pilot to fly solo nonstop over the Atlantic, was born in Detroit, Mich., a 9 1/2-pound baby delivered by his uncle, Dr. Edwin Lodge.
By itself, the flight of the “Lone Eagle” makes him of compelling interest to any student of history, not to mention the kidnapping-death of his baby in the so-called “Crime of the Century” and his controversial involvement in the isolationist cause before World War II.
But he holds even more fascination for me because his in-laws, the Morrow family, left such a strong imprint on my hometown, Englewood.
Lindbergh’s father-in-law, Dwight Morrow, made his fortune as a corporate lawyer and partner with J.P. Morgan and Co. before serving as Ambassador to Mexico under his Amherst College classmate, President Calvin Coolidge. Our local public high school was named in his honor.
Morrow’s eldest daughter, Elisabeth, left a more direct imprint on education, founding in 1930 an independent co-educational country day school that still operates on its 14-acre campus to this day.
Much of the reason for Lindbergh’s success as a pilot, I first learned from Brendan Gill’s fine analysis of his solo flight, Lindbergh Alone, stemmed from his obsession with virtually every mechanical detail of his plane. His control-freak nature, however, also tremendously complicated his relationship with his wife, the former Anne Morrow.
From the initial hero-worship she felt at the sight of the hero when she first saw him at a reception in Mexico, Anne eventually came to be irritated by her husband’s narcissism and niggling attention to even the slightest detail of household operations. In the mid-‘50s, I discovered in A. Scott Berg’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Lindbergh, she had an affair with her therapist.
In the last 16 years of their marriage, Anne—a fine author in her own right—came to look forward to her husband’s frequent business trips abroad. One of the areas he visited was Germany, where he began a liaison with a disabled hatmaker named Brigitte Hesshaimer.
In 2003, two years after the death of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, DNA tests showed that her husband had fathered three children by Hesshaimer. Two years later, a biography claimed that Lindbergh also sired children by Hesshaimer's sister. The aviator never disclosed this part of his life to any member of his family.
“Lucky Lindy,” indeed…
By itself, the flight of the “Lone Eagle” makes him of compelling interest to any student of history, not to mention the kidnapping-death of his baby in the so-called “Crime of the Century” and his controversial involvement in the isolationist cause before World War II.
But he holds even more fascination for me because his in-laws, the Morrow family, left such a strong imprint on my hometown, Englewood.
Lindbergh’s father-in-law, Dwight Morrow, made his fortune as a corporate lawyer and partner with J.P. Morgan and Co. before serving as Ambassador to Mexico under his Amherst College classmate, President Calvin Coolidge. Our local public high school was named in his honor.
Morrow’s eldest daughter, Elisabeth, left a more direct imprint on education, founding in 1930 an independent co-educational country day school that still operates on its 14-acre campus to this day.
Much of the reason for Lindbergh’s success as a pilot, I first learned from Brendan Gill’s fine analysis of his solo flight, Lindbergh Alone, stemmed from his obsession with virtually every mechanical detail of his plane. His control-freak nature, however, also tremendously complicated his relationship with his wife, the former Anne Morrow.
From the initial hero-worship she felt at the sight of the hero when she first saw him at a reception in Mexico, Anne eventually came to be irritated by her husband’s narcissism and niggling attention to even the slightest detail of household operations. In the mid-‘50s, I discovered in A. Scott Berg’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Lindbergh, she had an affair with her therapist.
In the last 16 years of their marriage, Anne—a fine author in her own right—came to look forward to her husband’s frequent business trips abroad. One of the areas he visited was Germany, where he began a liaison with a disabled hatmaker named Brigitte Hesshaimer.
In 2003, two years after the death of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, DNA tests showed that her husband had fathered three children by Hesshaimer. Two years later, a biography claimed that Lindbergh also sired children by Hesshaimer's sister. The aviator never disclosed this part of his life to any member of his family.
“Lucky Lindy,” indeed…
No comments:
Post a Comment