newsletter 4-1

“Friday will be Amelia Earhart Day”, Parkersburg Mayor H.R. DeBussey announced on Wednesday, October 28,1936.
The famous aviatrix’s visit was being sponsored by the Parkersburg Women’s Club, the city’s largest organization, assisted by its Junior Department. Earhart, the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, will speak about her adventures in a lecture on Friday, October 30 in the high school auditorium at 8:15 p.m.
Mrs. Campbell Neptune, president of the Woman’s Club, announced that “cars parked at the high school will have adequate police protection from Halloween revelers.” Admission to Earhart’s lecture was $1.00 for adults and 25 cents for children.
Earhart, contrary to expectations that she would fly, drove her car from Cleveland to Parkersburg, arriving on October 30. One of the first persons to greet her, according to that day’s Parkersburg Sentinel, was Wade Stewart, manager of the airport. According to the Sentinel, “The ‘keys’ to the local airport were laid at the feet, figuratively, of Miss Earhart and she will probably be a visitor there before she leaves Parkersburg.”
Reporters waited anxiously at the hotel for Earhart’s arrival. The Sentinel reporter wrote that she resembled her pictures, adding, “She was outfitted in a fall suit of gray plaid, with a brown blouse and brown hose and leather walking shoes with low heels. She wore a pale pink tint on her fingernails, a watch, but no jewelry, not even a wedding ring.” The reporter noted that she arrived at the hotel “hatless….and girlishly windblown.”
In response to a reporter’s question about the Roosevelt badge she wore on her sweater, Earhart said, “Everyone knows I came out for Roosevelt…. because of his social conscience, because he is

highly intelligent, a real student of international affairs and intensely interested in the welfare of every human being in the country.” After being introduced to a young Republican woman, Earhart quipped, “Oh, but you’re too young to be a Republican. No one under 80 ought to be a Republican!” When asked to explain her comments, Earhart said, “I just feel that the Republican attitude is so reactionary, no one with any youth possibly could be in sympathy with the Republican ideals.”
Earhart’s lecture that evening on “Aviation Adventures” captivated the audience. As the Saturday, October 31 issue of the Sentinel, reported, “Standing before her audience, against a background of lovely potted ferns, Miss Earhart, first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean, appeared a completely womanly woman. Her low, well-modulated voice with its distinct charm, her feminine taste in her semi-formal dress that fell gracefully to the floor, her wavy blonde hair and ready smile gave no indications of the stamina that it must require to go soloing over ocean and land in trips that have brought so many air honors to the famous flyer.”

Earhart discussed the precautions taken for her safety on her trip across the Pacific from Honolulu to Oakland, California as noted in Saturday’s Sentinel. “I had a little rubber boat which could be instantaneously inflated from an oxygen tank. There was a can of patching so I might mend it as I sailed along, in case a hole appeared. There was a pump to keep it inflated. I had several flare guns and a balloon to which I intended tying a red flag to signal for aid should I be stranded in the ocean.