AMelia

America.s famous aviator, Amelia Earhart, was born on July 24, 1897 in Atchison, Kansas to Edwin Stanton and Amy Otis Earhart. Amelia had a sister, Muriel, with whom she was very close to. The girls had a difficult childhood due to her father being an alcoholic. The family had to travel a great deal as a result of her father always losing his jobs. In 1908, when Amelia was ten years old they were living in Des Moines, Iowa and it was at the Iowa State Fair that she saw her first plane. However, surprisingly to her known accomplishment she then described a plane as a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting. Despite Amelia.s difficult childhood she excelled academically and had a love for sports, animals, and poetry.

In 1914, Amelia along with her mother and sister left her father after losing another job and Amelia.s

Childhood portrait of Amelia Earhart

English:

Paul Mantz, Amelia Earhart, Harry Manning and Fred...

mother sent the girls to private intermediate schools in preparation for college. After graduating from high school, Amelia planned to attend college, but while visiting her sister in 1917 at a college preparatory school in Canada she met four wounded World War I veterans. After hearing of their plight she decided to train as a nurses aid in Toronto and served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at a military hospital until the Armistice in November 1918. At the war's end, she enrolled as a pre-med student at Columbia University.

Although doing well in her studies, in 1920 she decided to join her mother and father in California. While in California she went to an aerial meet at Daugherty Field in Long Beach with her father and that is when she became interested in flying. The next day after taking a ten-minute plane ride, Amelia knew she must learn...