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8.

Back in the Air — Grounded by Tragedy

THROUGHOUT 1931, the airlines continued to call upon Lindbergh to make promotional tours overseas and to comment on air safety. His reassurances to the public were especially desired in the aftermath of a major accident. One particularly spectacular crash occurred at the end of March 1931. Eight people perished after a propeller broke on a commercial plane in Kansas. Among the dead was legendary football coach Knute Rockne. Anne experienced visceral reactions to news like that, though Charles assured her the Kansas crash resulted from a freak accident.

By 1931, airline stock had dropped precipitously in value following the 1929 stock market crash. Yet Lindbergh remained reliably upbeat. He could be counted on as more of a cheerleader for increased air travel than a sober analyst. That spring, Lindbergh gave an optimistic guest lecture at Princeton on the extraordinary potential for aviation. Yet he was beginning to find some of his aviation assignments repetitive and boring. He was looking forward to a major trip which he had talked Anne into taking later that year.

Sometimes Lindbergh demonstrated strong support for his fatherin-law. He showed up in early March of 1931 at a banquet at Princeton where Dwight Morrow gave the keynote speech. Despite Lindbergh’s show of support, Morrow had reason for consternation. His son-in-law had just ordered a new, custom-designed sea plane to take Anne that summer across Canada to the Far East. The plane would be fitted with pontoons instead of wheels for its landing gear and hop from one water landing to another. Aside from the inherent risks, the plane would cost close to $18,000 (over $275,000 today). The frugal banker considered such expenditure hugely extravagant in the middle of the Depression.

While Lindbergh’s new seaplane was being assembled for their next adventure, Anne was happier on the ground. Truth be told, she found flying with her husband often petrifying. Anne felt torn between maternal longings and her husband’s demands. Yet incessant rubber-neckers invading their daily life were as frustrating to her as to her husband. Early that spring of 1931, Anne became furious when she learned from her family that fanatic “Lindy” devotees zoomed by her parents’ estate and hit her beloved dog Daffin, leaving the white terrier near death as they sped off. The dog could not be saved. She wrote her sister Connie that Charles “wanted to shoot them.”

Anne soon had two new dogs whose antics helped take her mind off the loss of Daffin. One was a short, Scotch terrier puppy they bought for themselves and named “Skean.” Skean liked to follow Anne around during the day and sleep by the baby’s crib. The other dog was a high-spirited fox terrier which arrived from Detroit as a gift from Lindbergh’s mother. The dog was named Wahgoosh, like Lindbergh’s childhood companion that had been brutally killed in Minnesota when he was a teen. Wahgoosh stayed with the Whateleys at the farmhouse. Skean lived with the Lindberghs in Englewood during the week and came down with them to the farmhouse when they spent weekends there. The baby soon knew both dogs by name. When excited, Skean yipped in “fierce little barks.” Both dogs would later become of interest in the kidnap case.

Despite Anne’s severe misgivings, Charles talked her into working with him that spring to get her own pilot’s license. Breckinridge was on the board of an aircraft company based at Roosevelt Field in Long Island that made slow, three-seater biplanes marketed to barnstormers to take guests sightseeing. It had won an award for safety. The Bird Aviation Company had since relocated to Brooklyn and had just started marketing its third version. Lindbergh bought one to teach Anne to fly — again upsetting his in-laws at both the cost and the potential danger. Though he was spending his own money, the Morrows disapproved of his lack of a full-time job and spending habits. Mostly, they feared for Anne’s welfare.

The lessons involved extensive hours away from their baby son each day as Charles trained Anne to pilot the small biplane. Anne hated it whenever they arrived home so late that she missed seeing her son before his bedtime. The lessons themselves became a nightmarish ordeal. She kept to herself the extreme frustration she felt when her husband forced her to repeat landings until she got them right. He also prodded her to complete radio operator training, which required mastery of Morse Code.

Decades later Anne acknowledged “how challenged, frightened and infuriated I was trying to satisfy my exacting instructor.” Yet the results of her lessons were self-empowering and ultimately exhilarating. Very few women yet had the opportunity to do what she was being groomed for — and her instructor was the most famous pilot in the world. At last, Anne also had earphones to protect her from the engine noise.

In June 1931, Lindbergh received an honorary degree from Princeton for his pioneering role in aviation. As their departure date for the Orient approached, Anne was feeling conflicted about leaving her son behind. It had been such a joy to celebrate his first birthday with her family at their Englewood estate. By July, Little Charlie was beginning to take steps if someone held his hand. Yet he would not be led. He knew where he wanted to go. She marveled at observing each new stage of his infancy. Yet Anne could not bring herself to refuse another pioneering adventure with her husband.

Complete subordination of her will chafed sometimes, but Anne realized that it was also the lifeblood of their marriage. On the ground, Lindbergh could often be intolerable. He abhorred the arts, still played immature pranks and otherwise demonstrated his lack of savoir-faire. Apart from getting him to use a handkerchief to blow his nose, she mostly bit her lip. In the air, he could take her anywhere on the planet — like the fantastic voyages to exotic destinations she dreamed of as a child.

In late July 1931, the Lindberghs began their extended survey trip from Canada and Alaska to Siberia, Japan and China in their new float plane. Their mission included exploring possibilities for the fastest route from New York to Tokyo, but the trip was more for publicity than actual use by aeronautics teams. They left their thirteen-month old son at Anne’s parents’ mansion in Englewood.

The Morrows brought their grandson with them on their annual trip to their estate on the island community of North Haven off the coast of Maine. The toddler was accompanied by his new nanny Bessie Gow, who went by the nickname “Betty.” Like the Whateleys, who had scant experience as household help, the twenty-seven-year-old Scottish immigrant had very little practice as a nanny before she was hired by the Lindberghs in late February 1931. The interview with the petite brunette at the Morrows’ Englewood estate lasted only half an hour. After a week of overlap with the outgoing nanny, Marie Cummings, Betty had quickly gotten the hang of the precise regimen the Lindberghs required.

Before the trip to the Far East, Anne had often left her son alone with Betty at the farmhouse near Mount Rose, New Jersey with the Whateleys. Anne trusted Betty to take good care of the toddler and see to it that he got medical attention when needed. In the Morrows’ privileged world, many well-to-do mothers similarly relied on nannies, but few, if any, took off on trips away from their baby as long as the several-month trip the Lindberghs were embarking on. Anne took Betty aside before they left and directed Betty to refrain from coddling the boy. Fearing the loss of her son’s affections, Anne specifically warned Betty not to let Little Charlie become too fond of her.

Unlike his wife, Lindbergh never had qualms about leaving his son behind. He fully endorsed child psychologist Watson’s view that pampering should be discouraged. It matched Lindbergh’s own austere upbringing. If children were held and kissed too much, they turned into mama’s boys. On their trip, Anne still greatly missed Little Charlie, cherishing the pictures of him she brought along and dreaming about him almost every night. Sometimes she got the pleasure of sharing the photos with women she met on their journey. Talking with others about her son’s outgoing personality and the delight he gave her made Anne feel as if she were back in his presence. Her mother’s letters helped a lot. Mrs. Morrow delighted in her grandson and gladly shared that he was now walking on his own. He also liked to take rides on the vacuum cleaner.

The Lindberghs reached the Republic of China in the aftermath of one of the worst floods in recorded history. The death toll from the 1931 months-long disaster along the Yangtze River would ultimately be estimated upwards of three-and-a-half million people with more than ten times as many severely impacted. Snow melt combined with heavy spring rains had precipitated constant flooding over the spring and summer of 1931, covering an area almost as big as New England. The disaster destroyed farmland and villages, leaving behind hordes of homeless and starving refugees devastated by outbreaks of cholera, malaria, measles and dysentery.

Chiang-Kai-Shek had only been the leader of the Republic of China for three years when the flood struck. He faced extraordinary pressure to provide disaster relief. He asked Lindbergh to extend his stay to help distribute food and medical supplies with his seaplane. Much to Anne’s disappointment, Lindbergh agreed. When corresponding with her family back in the states, Anne mostly minimized the hardships of their prolonged trip. They sometimes slept in the cramped quarters of the plane and went days without bathing. An accident forced the couple to bail out in life preservers into the unsanitary Yangtze River. Anne’s nightmare would be “to die screaming,” but the emergency evacuation felt instead like an out-of-body experience. Lindbergh always encouraged Anne to make detailed notes of their flying adventures. She would chronicle this journey in her book North to the Orient, which became a best-seller when published in 1935.

When she left Little Charlie with Betty Gow, Anne had originally thought the Morrows would be spending the entire time they were gone with her son. She asked her mother to send pictures each month of the boy as he grew, despite her husband’s reluctance to have their son photographed. The Morrows returned to Englewood in mid-September and left their grandson with Betty in Maine out of concern about exposing him to a polio epidemic in the New York area. Back in New Jersey, the Morrows were also immersed in politics.

Not surprisingly, Morrow’s Senate campaign centered on ending prohibition. That proved overwhelmingly popular with the voters. Morrow himself still drank to excess and was now under a lot of stress. He died suddenly of a stroke on October 5, 1931, just after delivering a major radio speech. New Jersey’s new Senator was only fifty-eight, a devastating loss to the family keenly felt by the Republican Party as well. Dwight Morrow’s body was placed in an open casket in the library of his mansion so that colleagues, friends and family could pay their respects. An enormous funeral followed with his friend ex-President Coolidge among the distinguished attendees. Afterward, New Jersey’s Democratic Governor Harry Moore offered Elizabeth Morrow her husband’s seat for the remainder of his term, but she declined.

Anne was beside herself that she received the shocking news while on an American aircraft carrier in China. She immediately got her husband to cut short their overseas trip. Since their plane was then being repaired in Shanghai, they disembarked in Japan and returned via ship to Seattle. The slowness of their return must have been agonizing for Anne. They borrowed an airplane in Seattle to fly back to New York, arriving home on October 19 — two weeks after her father died.