Amelia Earhart.

Essay by sammigirl89Junior High, 8th gradeA+, May 2003

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Name of person Researched: Amelia Earhart

I.Early Life: Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 at her grandparents' home in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia and her sister Muriel were to know privilege and wealth through their grandparents. They attended private schools and they enjoyed many of the comforts of life. Their father, Edwin Earhart, took an executive job in 1905 with the Rock Island Line Railroad in Des Moines, Iowa. The girls were left with their grandparents in Atchison. It was not till 1908 that the girls moved to Des Moines to be with their parents. Amelia was 10 years old when she saw her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair. She saw it as, "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting." It would be more than a decade before Amelia's interest in aviation would be awakened. In 1914 the girls and their mother left Edwin after he was fired from The Rock Island RR, and went to live with friends in Chicago.

The family's social and financial security had been eroded. From occupying a leading position in society they had become the subject of local gossip and pity. Amelia then decided to train as a nurses aid in Toronto and she served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse at a military hospital until the Armistice in November 1918. In the fall of 1919 Amelia 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. They had recently reunited and were encouraging the sisters to join them. Several moths after her arrival in California Amelia and her father went to an aerial meet at Daugherty Field in Long Beach. She had become very interested in flying. The...