Rochelle Gollust
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VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program Peoplein America. Every week we tell about a person who was important inthe history of the United States. Today, we tell about Anne MorrowLindbergh. She was a famous pilot and writer.
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VOICE ONE:
Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the wife of the famous pilot CharlesLindbergh. She flew airplanes with him as his co-pilot. She wrotemore than ten books of memories, fiction, poetry and essays. Criticshave called her books “small works of art.”
Anne Spencer Morrow was born inNineteen-Oh-Six in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father was a very richbanker. He later became the American ambassador to Mexico. Hermother was an educator and poet. Anne went to Smith College inNorthampton, Massachusetts. She wanted to become a writer. She wontwo major prizes from the college for her writing.
VOICE TWO:
Anne Morrow was a quiet, shy and small young woman when she metCharles Lindbergh in Nineteen-Twenty-Seven. He was staying with herfamily in Mexico City. The twenty-five year old man was tall andgood-looking. Charles Lindbergh was one of the most famous people inthe world. He had just become the first person to fly a plane aloneacross the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris. Two years later,Anne and Charles Lindbergh were married. Reports about theirmarriage were on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
VOICE ONE:
After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh, Anne became a pilot. Shelearned to plan an airplane flight as a navigator, operate a radioand fly a plane. She began making many long airplane flights withher husband
In Nineteen-Thirty, she became the first woman in the UnitedStates to get a pilot’s license to fly a glider, which does not havean engine. That same year, the Lindberghs set a speed record forflying across the United States. They flew from Los Angeles,California to New York City in fourteen hours and forty-fiveminutes. Anne Lindbergh was seven months pregnant at the time.
The Lindberghs explored new ways to fly around the world. Theyflew almost fifty-thousand kilometers over five continents. Anne andCharles Lindbergh were famous around the world. They seemed to enjoythe greatest luck that any young people could have.
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VOICE TWO:
Then in Nineteen-Thirty-Two something terrible happened. TheLindbergh’s first baby, twenty-month-old Charles, was kidnapped fromtheir home in New Jersey. The body of the baby was discovered morethan ten weeks later.
Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested, tried, found guilty andexecuted for the crime. There were a huge number of press reportsabout the case. Newspapers called it “The Crime of the Century.”
After the trial, the Lindberghs found it difficult to live in theUnited States. There were threats on the life of their second child.And there were too many newspaper stories about them. So Anne andCharles Lindbergh moved to Europe in Nineteen-Thirty-Five. Fouryears later they moved back to the United States.
VOICE ONE:
Anne Morrow Lindbergh never fully recovered from the death of herfirst child. Yet, she and her husband had five more children. Shecontinued flying. In Nineteen-Thirty-Four, she became the firstwoman to win the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Gold Medal.She was honored for her exploration, research and discovery.
Anne Lindbergh began writing to ease her sadness. She wroteseveral books about the flights with her husband. Her first book was”North to the Orient” in Nineteen-Thirty-Five. She wrote about theirflight in a single-engine airplane over Canada and Alaska to Japanand China. This is what she wrote about landing in northern Canadaand jumping out of the plane:
VOICE THREE:
“Then two little Eskimo boys came up shyly and followed me about.Their bright eyes shone under their caps as they searched my faceand costume curiously. ‘You see,’ said one of the traders, ‘You’rethe first white woman they’ve ever seen. There’s never been one herebefore.’ “
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Three years later Anne Lindbergh wrote “Listen! The Wind.” It wasabout the Lindberghs’ fifty-thousand kilometer flight. It becamevery popular. One critic said it described the poetry of flight asno other book on flying had ever done.
In Nineteen-Forty, Anne Lindbergh wrote a book called “The Waveof the Future.” She wrote it while Europe was fighting World WarTwo. She wrote that she did not support communism or fascism. Butshe said they were unavoidable. She wrote that she hoped the UnitedStates could avoid entering the conflict. And, in a letter, shewrote that she was beginning to feel that the German Nazi dictatorAdolf Hitler was a very great man. Her husband had become unpopularfor expressing similar beliefs.
Many people criticized the book. Missus Lindbergh later admittedthat both she and her husband failed to see the worst evils of theNazi system. She stopped writing for many years.
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VOICE ONE:
Anne Morrow Lindbergh began writing again in Nineteen-Fifty-Five.She wrote a book called “Gift from the Sea.” It was about women’ssearch for meaning in their lives.
“Gift from the Sea” was one of the most popular books in America.It has sold more than one million copies and has influenced manywomen. In “Gift from the Sea”, Missus Lindbergh wrote about the manydifferent kinds of pressures that women face.
She wrote that women who are wives and mothers have manydifferent interests and duties. They must be able to deal with theirhusband, children, friends, home and community. She found itdifficult for women to balance all these duties and still make aplace for themselves. Yet she said that women must try to find abalance in their lives.
VOICE TWO:
In “Gift from the Sea,” Anne Lindbergh described how women had toperform many jobs that pulled them in different directions like acircus performer.
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“What circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It putsthe trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily,balancing a pile of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol,kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now! This is not the lifeof simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn usof. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does notbring grace; it destroys the soul.”
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Anne Lindbergh found that one answer to this problem was to bealone. The book described how she spent time by herself on an islandby the sea. She studied the sea shells she found. And she made herlife simpler.
During the Nineteen-Seventies, Anne Lindbergh wrote several morebooks about the happy and sad events of her life. One of these iscalled “Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead.” She wrote about the joy offlying. She also wrote about the pain she and her husband felt afterthe body of their baby son was discovered.
VOICE THREE:
“We sleep badly and wake up and talk. I dreamed right along as Iwas thinking – all of one piece, no relief. I was walking down asuburban street seeing other people’s children and I stopped to seeone in a carriage and I thought it was a sweet child, but I waslooking for my child in his face. And I realized, in the dream, thatI would do that forever.”
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VOICE TWO:
Charles Lindbergh died in Nineteen-Seventy-Four at the age ofseventy-two. The next year, the readers of Good Housekeepingmagazine voted Anne Morrow Lindbergh one of the ten women in theworld they liked the most. In Nineteen-Ninety-Six, Missus Lindberghwas invited to join the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She washonored for her success as a pilot.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh died at her home in Vermont inTwo-Thousand-One. She was ninety-four years old. Many people havebeen influenced by the way she dealt with both happiness andsadness. They respect the way she lived life to the fullest. Andthey like the advice about living that they find in her books.
VOICE THREE:
“If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, youlive more richly in those moments.”
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust. Ourreader was Sarah Long. And our producer was Caty Weaver. I’m ShirleyGriffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another Peoplein America program on the Voice of America.