Anne, the Colonel and AE (Amelia Earhart) were fellow guests at the home of Jack Maddux in Hollywood. One night they were sitting around close to the icebox. Anne and AE were drinking buttermilk. Lindbergh, standing behind his wife munching a tomato sandwich, had the sudden impulse to let drops of water fall in a stream on his wife's shoulder from a glass in his hand.
Anne was wearing a sweet dress of pale blue silk. Water spots silk. AE observed a growing unhappiness on Anne's part but no move toward rebellion, not even any murmur of complaint. AE often said that Anne Lindbergh is the best sport in the world.
Then Anne rose and stood by the door, with her back to the others, and her head resting on her arm. AE thought, with horror, that the impossible had come to pass, and that Anne was crying. But Anne was thinking out a solution to her problem, and the instant she thought it out, she acted upon it. At once and with surprising thoroughness.
With one comprehensive movement she swung around and quite simply threw the contents of her glass of buttermilk straight over the Colonel's blue serge suit. It made a simply marvelous mess!
Odd indeed. Imagine yourself in such a scene with your spouse. What would your reaction be to such a cruel and embarrassing moment, in front of virtual strangers, in someone else's home? Such were the manifestations of Charles Lindbergh's "practical jokes."
It fitted a typical behavior pattern inherent in all of his "jokes." Lindbergh used his "jokes" to control people whose behavior he wished to alter. He did not want the sergeant to bother him, the cadets to harass him, Love to socialize with women or Gurney to drink alcohol. He performed his jokes to punish them for their behaviors.
It is unknown what prompted him to dump a glass of water on his wife's head in front of Amelia Earhart. But it is known that Lindbergh had an extremely sexist view (even by 1929 standards) of women and accorded them little respect. Anne Lindbergh was not only very bright, she was extremely well educated and clearly his intellectual superior.
Amelia Earhart was more than an accomplished flyer. She was a leading American feminist who promoted her political beliefs by demonstrating that women could perform equally to men.
Anne and Amelia were engaged in an intense discussion. If Lindbergh perceived Anne becoming swayed by Amelia's political belief on women, then the water dumping fits a classic pattern.
Shortly thereafter the new plane was completed, and Anne and Charles left for their return flight across the country. Charles was determined to set the new crosscountry speed record in Sirius. A storm system gathered almost immediately after their departure from California, forcing Lindbergh to fly extremely high over the Rockies and throughout the flight. They had no oxygen with them. Anne was seven months pregnant.
At several points during the flight Anne thought that she would plead with Lindbergh to land the plane, but did not. It was the worst flight she had yet endured with her husband and it caused her to be so sick that when they landed in New York she had to be carried from the plane by stretcher and rushed to the hospital.
Since the press was waiting for Lindbergh at the airport to report on his efforts to break the cross country speed record, Anne's apparent sickness was reported the next day in the newspapers. Lindbergh angrily denied that Anne had been ill, and his office castigated the press for reporting such. However, years later Anne herself admitted in Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead that the flight had caused her great misery, particularly in her condition. Today any physician would strongly advise against an expectant mother, seven months pregnant, flying without oxygen for a prolonged period. Oxygen deprivation to a near full term fetus is quite dangerous.
In May of 1930 Anne moved in with her parents at Englewood to await the birth of their first child. The country, and most certainly the press, was greatly interested in the arrival of the first born of Charles Lindbergh. Several newspaper accounts drew a parallel between awaiting the arrival of the Lindberghs' baby and the British anticipating the arrival of an heir to the throne.
But when the baby, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, III, was born on June 22, 1930 (which was Anne's 24th birthday), the world was kept waiting two weeks before Colonel Lindbergh would release either the name or photographs of the baby. The family reported that both mother and child were doing very well, and that the baby was "normal" in all respects. Later it was disclosed that the child had two overlapping toes on one of his feet, but other than that was "healthy and normal." This description of the baby as "healthy and normal" appears often in published accounts of the baby's birth, during the time of the kidnapping, and of his death. It was often rumored, though never established, that there was something "wrong" with the Lindbergh baby.
Colonel Lindbergh developed a pattern during the beginning of his marriage, and after the birth of his son, which he followed for most of his life. He would travel frequently, spending little time at home. In July of 1930, his business affairs were growing, and he was placed on the "preferred customer" listing at J.P. Morgan's Bank, which enabled him to buy choice stock at below market value. Since his interest in a number of airline companies was growing, a family friend of the Morrows, Manhattan lawyer Colonel Henry C. Breckinridge, became Lindbergh's advisor.
He also struck up an association with Dr. Alexis Carrel, a Nobel scientist and French doctor who was working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. Lindbergh often joined Carrell at the Institute and helped him develop a perfusion pump to keep organs alive. Its designs were studied later during the development of the artificial heart. Carrel was a strange individual who wore a black hooded robe in the laboratory and insisted that all of his lab assistants do the same. He had won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for his work on suturing blood vessels during surgery instead of destroying them. But as he grew older, his views became more radical, and he wrote papers and published articles on subject matter well beyond his expertise.
In a published book entitled, Man, the Unknown, Carrel postulated that "dark skinned people" were part of the "lesser races" because of their high exposure to sun light, as opposed to the Scandinavian races which did not get exposed to as much light. Lindbergh was fascinated with Carrel's views on these and other subjects, and after he and Anne fled to Europe following the trial of Hauptmann, lived for a time near Carrel's island home off the coast of France.
In the spring and summer of 1931, the Lindberghs prepared for a northern surveying flight to the Orient. It was hoped that by doing so a commercial air route could be developed since this seemed to be the shortest route. For this trip the Sirius was equipped with retractable landing gear and pontoons as most of the landings would be on water.
It was also a route filled with hazards. Water landings, even under the best of circumstances, could be extremely dangerous. Lindbergh was widely criticized for the route he had charted. Several prominent explorers and experts on the Arctic advised him that his "straight line between two points" approach to his charted course was filled with unnecessary risk taking, and that by slightly altering his course he would avoid many of the more extreme hazards. He refused. Risk taking was welcomed by Colonel Lindbergh. Hadn't he, after all, piloted in all sorts of weather, crossed the Atlantic alone, wing walked, completed a double parachute jump on his first leap from an airplane, and survived several crashes? One of the scientists reminded Lindbergh, however, that this time he was taking his wife on the trip.
Of the many dangers encountered several could have been avoided. After departing Point Barrow, Alaska, the northern most point of the trip, he was forced to land due to a fuel shortage. He did so at an inlet called Shishmaref near Nome, and had greatly miscalculated the time of sunset. He set down in near darkness with fog approaching, an extremely dangerous combination for water landings. Not carefully tracking the hours of sunset near the Arctic Circle was a mistake commonly made by inexperienced pilots. Later the Arctic expert and flyer John Grierson publicly criticized Lindbergh in a letter for taking this kind of a risk. He asked why he hadn't checked sunset time at Nome before leaving Barrow. Lindbergh defended himself,