Amelia Earhart and making your dreams come true

Amelia Earhart birthplace and museum in Atchison Kansas (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

Amelia Earhart birthplace and museum in Atchison, Kansas.

This comment from Amelia Earhart caught my eye when I visited the house where the aviation pioneer was born (now a museum) in Atchison, Kansas….

“My particular inner desire to fly the Atlantic [Ocean] alone was nothing new with me. I had flown Atlantics before. Everyone has his own Atlantics to fly.”

Everyone has his (or her) own Atlantics to fly.

Everyone has places to see, things to do, cities to explore, mountains to climb that matter a great deal to them personally.

What are yours?

I was stunned to see a photo at the museum of Earhart meeting Orville Wright, one of the famous Wright Brothers who flew at Kitty Hawk. Stop and think what a collision of historical figures this represents….one of the very first to successfully experiment with powered flight, meeting a woman who smashed countless aviation records until she disappeared forever into the Pacific, chasing a dream of circumnavigating the globe in her Lockheed Electra.

Amelia Earhart meets Orville Wright in photo from the Earhart birthplace museum Atchison Kansas (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

Earhart meets Orville Wright in a photo from the Amelia Earhart birthplace museum in Atchison, Kansas.

How far are you willing to go to make the things happen that matter to you?

I don’t think that Earhart’s first love was design or fashion, but one of the surprises I found visiting her birthplace were samples of work she did that no doubt helped fund her aviation projects.

Maybe there was a “ghost designer” for her, or maybe she really did it herself, but her name was on a line of women’s silk scarves and on luggage sets. They were sold in the late 1920’s and I think into the 1930’s.

Amelia Earhart luggage at her birthplace museum in Atchison Kansas (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

Amelia Earhart luggage at her birthplace museum in Atchison, Kansas.

Maybe I’m a sucker for reputation and hoping that some of her would rub off on me, but I’d have bought a set of these “light, strong, handsome” suitcases back then.

Would you?

Amelia Earhart-designed silk scarf 1929 on display at her birthplace museum in Atchison Kansas (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

Amelia Earhart-designed silk scarf circa 1929.

Wrap one of these scarves jauntily about your neck, then go forth and conquer!

I’m sure there was squawking at the time about these sorts of commercial projects, but how else was she to raise money to chase her Atlantics across the sky?

That’s the beauty of getting to know a famous figure as a real person; by walking where they walked, seeing where they got their start, and then thinking, “Why couldn’t this be me?”

Note:  If you’re in Atchison around breakfast or lunch, I recommend the Marigold Bakery and Café in downtown Atchison. My soup and sandwich there were delicious, and the coffee was nice and strong. (Update – sadly, the Marigold is now closed, but there are several other eateries in downtown.)

 

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