Amelia was a tomboy who often came home with skinned knees and bruises from climbing up trees and onto rooftops
Amelia was also a tomboy She played basketball baseball tennis and football She swam fished and rode horses Amelia’s mother encouraged her girls to be active She even sewed bloomers for them to wear although girls of this time only wore skirts When Amelia was 10 she and her family visited the Iowa State Fair Here she saw her first airplane Amelia was not impressed She later wrote It was a thing of rusty wire and wood and looked not at all interesting Did you know Amelia her sister and two playmates built a roller coaster in her grandparents backyard The Earhart girls had seen a roller coaster at the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair but had been forbidden to ride it Moving around Amelia’s later childhood was more unsettled Although the Earhart family was together again Edwin Earhart began drinking a lot of alcohol He moved from job to job and the family struggled to pay their bills In 1915 Amy left her husband and moved with the two girls to Chicago Illinois
Young Amelia was independent Her high school yearbook photograph was captioned A E the girl in brown who walks alone Amelia worked long hard hours as a nurse’s aide in Toronto Canada
Did you know The first woman recorded taking flight was Frenchwoman Elisabeth Thible in 1784 Thible was a passenger in a hot-air balloon
