from it … It looked like a bombing … fire all over the boulevard.” Amelia thought the accident tragic but unnecessary, the result of ignorance and overconfidence on the part of the pilot.
With the money from her sale of the ill-fated Airster Amelia bought a car—not a cheap, practical Model T Ford like one Kinner lent her, but a 1922 Kissel Kar. A beautiful vehicle with a convertible top, big nickel headlamps, and a long, low, yellow body with black fenders, the car wasthe equivalent of a modern-day Alfa Romeo. The Kissel was named the
Yellow Peril
by its new owner, whose penchant for beauty preempted the threat of unemployment and unpaid bills. More aware of economic reality than Amy, Amelia was still her mother’s daughter, a member of the impoverished gentry. At Ogontz she copied a poem by “Moslin [sic] Eddin Saudi, Mohmmadan [sic] Sheik and Persian Poet”:
If thou of fortune be bereft
And in thy store be but two loaves left—sell one,
Buy hyacinthe to find thy soul.
The Kissel was her hyacinthe.
When she packed up for the trip east she took an odd collection of books and notes. One small notebook contained notes from herphotography class at the University of California, Los Angeles, along with her thoughts on two widely different subjects:
Crossing a track while driving is much easier diagonally, i.e., so that each wheel strikes the raised surface at a different time—thus distributing and neutralizing the shocks. I think some kind of shock absorber could be devised on this principle. (Drawings later)
Sowing wild oats is putting cracks in the vase of our souls which can never be obliterated or sealed by love. As GBS [George Bernard Shaw] says, “Virtue does not consist in abstaining from vice but in not desiring it.”
The engineer and moralist also showed an interest in economic justice, copying this poem in another book:
Stupidity Street
I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For people to eat
Sold in the shops of Stupidity Street.
I saw in a vision
the worm in the wheat
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat;
Nothing for sale in Stupidity Street.
Ralph Hodgson
Amelia and Amy left Hollywood on a bright May day. Barely recovered from one operation and knowing another would be necessary as soon as she reached Boston, Amelia was determined to see something on the way. She drove to the Sequoia National Park, then to Yosemite and Crater Lake in early June. When Amy asked if they were ever going east, her daughter said, “Not until we reach Seattle.” After Seattle she drove to Banff, Alberta, and Lake Louise beforecrossing Calgary’s prairie land on her way to Yellowstone National Park where they arrived June 30. The seven-thousand-mile trip to Boston took six weeks. Two weeks later Amelia entered Boston General Hospital for more surgery. After her release she joined Amy and Muriel inMedford, a suburb of Boston, where Muriel was teaching at Lincoln Junior High.
The house Amy rented at 47 Brooks Street was a large, turn-of-the-century, two-storied structure. The neighborhood, so near the crowded, urban center of Boston, was very like the one Amelia had lived in as a child in Atchison. Its large houses were set back from the street with shrubs and flowerbeds in the front yard and vegetable gardens at the rear. Tall trees arched over streets where children played and friendly dogs roamed without leash or owner. Unlike the Ford and Chevrolet sedans parked in nearby drives, the
Yellow Peril
left the neighborhood children awe-stricken.
While she recuperated, Amelia set about trying to raise money to pay some of her bills. In August she wrote to Lloyd Royer, who was building a plane with Monte Montijo at Kinner’s new field in Glenwood. Royer had sold the old Moreland truck for her, left from the Earharts’ ill-fated mining venture, but the buyer was slow in paying. “I certainly wish the gentleman would come across,” she wrote. “I need the money.”
In
With the money from her sale of the ill-fated Airster Amelia bought a car—not a cheap, practical Model T Ford like one Kinner lent her, but a 1922 Kissel Kar. A beautiful vehicle with a convertible top, big nickel headlamps, and a long, low, yellow body with black fenders, the car wasthe equivalent of a modern-day Alfa Romeo. The Kissel was named the
Yellow Peril
by its new owner, whose penchant for beauty preempted the threat of unemployment and unpaid bills. More aware of economic reality than Amy, Amelia was still her mother’s daughter, a member of the impoverished gentry. At Ogontz she copied a poem by “Moslin [sic] Eddin Saudi, Mohmmadan [sic] Sheik and Persian Poet”:
If thou of fortune be bereft
And in thy store be but two loaves left—sell one,
Buy hyacinthe to find thy soul.
The Kissel was her hyacinthe.
When she packed up for the trip east she took an odd collection of books and notes. One small notebook contained notes from herphotography class at the University of California, Los Angeles, along with her thoughts on two widely different subjects:
Crossing a track while driving is much easier diagonally, i.e., so that each wheel strikes the raised surface at a different time—thus distributing and neutralizing the shocks. I think some kind of shock absorber could be devised on this principle. (Drawings later)
Sowing wild oats is putting cracks in the vase of our souls which can never be obliterated or sealed by love. As GBS [George Bernard Shaw] says, “Virtue does not consist in abstaining from vice but in not desiring it.”
The engineer and moralist also showed an interest in economic justice, copying this poem in another book:
Stupidity Street
I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For people to eat
Sold in the shops of Stupidity Street.
I saw in a vision
the worm in the wheat
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat;
Nothing for sale in Stupidity Street.
Ralph Hodgson
Amelia and Amy left Hollywood on a bright May day. Barely recovered from one operation and knowing another would be necessary as soon as she reached Boston, Amelia was determined to see something on the way. She drove to the Sequoia National Park, then to Yosemite and Crater Lake in early June. When Amy asked if they were ever going east, her daughter said, “Not until we reach Seattle.” After Seattle she drove to Banff, Alberta, and Lake Louise beforecrossing Calgary’s prairie land on her way to Yellowstone National Park where they arrived June 30. The seven-thousand-mile trip to Boston took six weeks. Two weeks later Amelia entered Boston General Hospital for more surgery. After her release she joined Amy and Muriel inMedford, a suburb of Boston, where Muriel was teaching at Lincoln Junior High.
The house Amy rented at 47 Brooks Street was a large, turn-of-the-century, two-storied structure. The neighborhood, so near the crowded, urban center of Boston, was very like the one Amelia had lived in as a child in Atchison. Its large houses were set back from the street with shrubs and flowerbeds in the front yard and vegetable gardens at the rear. Tall trees arched over streets where children played and friendly dogs roamed without leash or owner. Unlike the Ford and Chevrolet sedans parked in nearby drives, the
Yellow Peril
left the neighborhood children awe-stricken.
While she recuperated, Amelia set about trying to raise money to pay some of her bills. In August she wrote to Lloyd Royer, who was building a plane with Monte Montijo at Kinner’s new field in Glenwood. Royer had sold the old Moreland truck for her, left from the Earharts’ ill-fated mining venture, but the buyer was slow in paying. “I certainly wish the gentleman would come across,” she wrote. “I need the money.”
In
Similar Books
