Introduction:
The key to understanding the Amelia Earhart mystery is found by learning how the mystery began, and by realizing the questions about it that could not be answered.
With what should have been an ample fuel supply remaining, and while Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan were still safely airborne, officially, after Amelia gave her last line of position all radio contact with her was lost. For hours she’d been unable to receive transmissions leading up to that moment. Suddenly she was heard from no more, while safely airborne with plenty of fuel. She never said she was in any danger.
Amelia had told her good friend in Bureau of Air Commerce Chief, Gene Vidal how if she had trouble finding Howland Island, she would try until she had at least four hours of fuel remaining, thus enabling her to make it back to the Gilbert Islands. And while in flight, after her last line of position transmission that included her final words of “we are running north and south” was received about an hour after her initial approach to Howland, Earhart was heard from no more. The date was July 2, 1937.
Interesting to note here, the ‘unabridged’ radio log of Earhart’s last transmission includes her given line of position only, while nowhere did it record her to have said, “we are running north and south.” Indeed, an Australian O-2 US Intelligence dispatch in 1938 specified it heard Earhart say she was heading “north” only and she continued to be “heard at intervals, her signals becoming weaker each time received.” So with her given line of position as 337 degrees as her northern heading, a slight jog to her port side would have found the upper Gilberts or lower Marshalls, and four hours of fuel would have allowed her to make it.
It appeared essential, to someone at least, that Earhart’s last words needed to be left as a question mark. By adding “and south” to the word “north,” it left the public scratching its collective head saying to itself, “Well… which way did she end up going(?) for she could not have flown both ways….” Eventually she chose one direction only, and the case of ‘north’ having been it was fortified.
STILL… and once more, officially Earhart, Noonan, and their plane were not seen nor heard from again beyond the morning of July 2, 1937...after Earhart last gave her line of position at 8:44AM. Again, she was still safely airborne at the time, and top Lockheed experts who described Earhart’s plane as still carrying enough fuel for Earhart and Noonan to select another ground-fall option, only leads one to believe in such a thing as a strong possibility, if not the outright probability.
No matter, for even where various “Earhart survived beyond July 2, 1937” theories exist, it can be fairly stated where so, to this date no one authentically knows where Amelia was or what she was actually doing at anytime after July 2, 1937 and before the end of World War Two.
This also equates to how no one knew the spirit of Amelia Earhart in any other way, than how it had been recognized up until July 2, 1937.
The idea that Amelia survived at all beyond July 2, 1937 is met by an exact challenge to ‘prove it.’ And although some investigative researchers declared how her post July 2, 1937 survival has been sufficiently proven, official silence only greeted all takers, and it would always remain that way.
So in 1991 when former Seton Hall University President Monsignor James Francis Kelley spoke of a woman he knew quite well for many years until 1982 to have formerly been known as Amelia Earhart, and where such a woman’s face and full body appeared as head to toe congruent with Amelia’s face and full body, official silence greeted this too. The U. S. Government has never said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it as a reality. Rather, it has always elected to say nothing at all instead.
In the case of the Irene Craigmile Bolam who Joe A. Gervais met, recognized, and photographed in 1965... realize too how twenty-six years later in 1991, Monsignor Kelley was talking about the same Irene Craigmile Bolam Joe Gervais referred to, when he claimed her to have been the living ‘former’ Amelia Earhart, while it was well known by his own family and friends how Kelley had been her long time ‘dear friend’ who had served as her ‘confessor.’
In essence, beyond the forensic evidence and argument presenting the sound logic of it all, both the distinguished and smart minded gentlemen as Joe Gervais and Monsignor Kelley described the same Irene Craigmile Bolam person, who was only identified that way from 1945 to 1982, to have hands-down been the non-recognized former Amelia Earhart. And to this day… no one has ever disproved either of them.
Today there are several Earhart research scholars who strongly agree with such a historically non-accepted, albeit realistic equation, although official silence dodges their collective desire to learn the missing facts, that pertain to the former Amelia Earhart’s existence as it would have been between the dates of July 2, 1937 and VJ Day in August of 1945.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Note: Scroll down for the "Earhart: Electra of the Pleiades" story and Chapter One
[Also refer to www.irene-amelia.com for more info & forensic comparisons.]
Chapter Two
A True Story Of A Shared Identity
In 1970 the McGraw-Hill Company published a book that shot to the top of the best seller’s list, and caused a brief national news sensation.
The book pointed a finger at a living woman known as ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam,’ while it basically accused her of not being the original ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam.’
Mrs. Bolam, recently widowed that year after losing her British husband, Guy Bolam, promptly and stoutly lawyer’d-up to sue McGraw-Hill and the book’s Authors. Soon afterward, the whole thing was being downplayed as a perpetrated hoax, the book was removed from the stores, the authors’ lives were ruined, and the already proven enigmatic Irene Craigmile Bolam would continue living her life until she died in 1982, all be her always a tad scrutinized and suspected… of something.
In 2006 Irene Craigmile Bolam's only child, one Larry Heller who was born in 1934, identified a woman as the ‘Mother’ he recalled from his childhood.
The problem became, in 1970 the McGraw-Hill book identified an entirely different woman than her own Son did as “Irene Craigmile Bolam.”
About Irene Craigmile Bolam? To conceptualize, while all standard information declares the permanent loss of Amelia Earhart taking place in 1937, a bit of history on the subject matter seemed clearly and purposefully forgotten by official sanctum well before the 1960s. Or, by the time the more-modern view of Earhart’s past misadventure set in.
Since 1937, to try and offer any possibility of Earhart’s continued survival beyond July 2 of that year only received ‘moot point’ and ‘on to the next subject’ replies in all important U. S. government & military circles. With one slight exception; a possibility that silently persisted in the back of some in-the-know personnel; how Amelia had actually survived, and a few high-level individuals were quietly aware of it.
Even certain people who'd known Amelia suspected it. Yet no one could extend such a belief, and then fathom the possibility, any at all for that matter, of Amelia Earhart surviving to ultimately change her name, after she’d experienced and endured profound spiritual, political, and even physical appearance changes. That… seemed completely absurd.
The Other Women
In late 2002 a forensic discovery was made. The discovery revealed how different women had at different times been identified to the public as the same ‘Irene Bolam,’ full name, “Irene Madaline nee O’Crowley Craigmile (Heller) Bolam,” AKA “Irene Craigmile,” and/or later just ‘Irene Bolam.’ (Name ‘Heller’ removed by annulment, 1940.)
In 1965 a retired Air Force Major, Joe Gervais met a woman who identified herself to him as ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam’ at a gathering of well known retired pilots on Long Island, New York. In 1970 the retired Major and a writer-partner of his, Joe Klaas had a major book published by McGraw-Hill. The book was called Amelia Earhart Lives. It featured the 1965 medium close-up 35MM photograph Joe Gervais took of Irene Bolam the day he met her. The issue of the book caused quite a national news stir. Except within a few weeks Irene Bolam did sue, and soon the book was removed from the stores.
New York literati back then did recall though, how just years earlier in 1966 Doubleday published a book by Fred Goerner titled The Search for Amelia Earhart. The book had been a national best seller, having been written with cooperation from, and information in accordance to WWII U. S. Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Chester Arthur Nimitz. Nimitz had confided in Goerner how Earhart’s Imperial Islands survival in the custody of Japan had been ‘known and documented in Washington’ after she was reported missing in 1937. Joe Gervais had earlier learned of such a truth as well, and it led to his deeper curiosity about the Irene Craigmile Bolam he met in 1965. For even Nimitz seemed to feel it was all over long ago for Earhart, even though his version of the story was considerably different than any crashed and sank version.
And Nimitz had been there learning about Earhart and other intelligence relays, before the broadcast news versions would omit or twist things for the public. Indeed Admiral Nimitz knew more than most, he having been placed in charge of the Marshall Islands after U. S. occupation in 1944.
Sixteen years later in 1960, USAF Captains Joe Gervais and Bob Dinger were called before a U. S. military panel at the Fuchu Airbase in Japan, where they were questioned about their privately conducted ‘Earhart investigations’ while stationed in the Pacific. Gervais and Dinger presented a list of seventy different statements they’d collected from people scattered around the ‘war time’ Japanese mandate islands. Their statements and other information they gathered was confiscated from them, and Gervais and Dinger were advised not to investigate Earhart while still active military men. They did anyway. Dinger stopped investigating Earhart in 1962, but because Gervais persisted on his Earhart trail, the Air Force saw no choice but to retire him as a Major in 1963. Two years later he met Irene Craigmile Bolam, after being invited by one of Amelia‘s past good friends, Viola Gentry to come and lecture about his Earhart investigations.
Of course, the singular Irene Bolam’s history described a life from her birth in 1904 to her death in 1982. And there certainly had been an original Irene O’Crowley Craigmile, but neither person identified in the shown photos appeared to be the original. That meant there had actually been three; the original, and two later impostors.
The original Irene, after being born into the large Irish catholic O’Crowley family of northern New Jersey in 1904, became Irene Craigmile after her first marriage to Charles Craigmile in 1927.
The history of the original Irene Craigmile is traceable beyond her first marriage though. It was eventually learned how Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley, Irene Craigmile’s maternal Aunt had been a good friend and confidant of Amelia Earhart’s from the moment she became famous and on. Soon more information would be learned, and the question did later become, ‘Who died as Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1982?’ For such a person most definitely had not been, the original Irene Craigmile, nor did she appear to have been the woman her son identified in 2006 as his Mother.
Instant Fame, Meet Attorney O’Crowley
After her 1928 Friendship Flight suddenly made her famous, Amelia grew intent on joining the Zonta Sisterhood, a distinguished national club of successful career women founded in Buffalo a decade earlier. One of the first persons Amelia became good friends with after joining the Zontas, was Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley who practiced law in Manhattan, Long Island, and Newark. Attorney Irene first introduced her newlywed Niece, Irene Craigmile to Amelia in 1928 at a Zonta dinner given in Amelia’s honor. (Attorney Irene had emceed the dinner event. )
Three years later in the autumn of 1931, the same year Amelia married George Putnam, Irene Craigmile’s husband Charles suddenly died of an appendicitis attack while he and Irene were on a road trip together.
Charles Craigmile had been a successful Civil Engineer who was fifteen years older than his wife. He had just been awarded the Newark Watershed Dam contract, an assignment that assured an income boon for he and Irene years ahead. Instead, Charles’ tragic death left his wife Irene of four years, a widow at age twenty-seven. Fortunately, there was a life insurance policy in Irene’s name.
The O’Crowley Family of Newark, New Jersey
After arriving from Ireland, Sarah Rutherford married Richard Joseph O’Crowley in 1877, whose parents were also Irish-Scot immigrants. They named their first born Son Joseph Richard who arrived in 1878. In 1880 their next Son, Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley arrived. Then came their daughter Edna Madaline in 1883, and last but not least, Amelia’s future friend, Irene Mary O’Crowley arrived in 1885. (After she became an attorney many years later, Irene Mary O’Crowley adjusted her middle name to “Rutherford” for the sake of a better legal practice moniker.)
Sarah and Richard’s oldest Son, Joe O’Crowley became a plumber like his Father. He met one Bridgette Doyle in 1900 and they were wed two years later. In 1904 their only child, a daughter they named Irene Madaline was born to them. Described as a ‘home birth,’ no birth certificate for the couple’s daughter, Irene was ever filed, evidently.
As the couple raised Irene, trouble loomed from Joe’s drinking. Sometimes he didn’t come home. The 1910 U. S. Census does not list Joe as living with Bridgette and his daughter, Irene. Years later it would be confirmed by family descendants how out of Sarah and Richard’s four children, their eldest Son Joe had posed their only contentions.
Their second oldest Son, Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley was exceptionally bright, and grew up to attend Columbia University on his way to becoming a prominent Urologist Physician. Meanwhile his Sisters, Edna Madaline and Irene Mary attended Trinity College together. Edna would marry, although she would never have children. Irene Mary O’Crowley did not marry until much later in life, and she never had Children either. Rather, Irene Mary furthered her education until she was among the first women to pass New Jersey’s State Bar exam on her way to becoming an attorney in 1919.
So it seemed where O’Crowley family progeny was concerned, Joseph and Bridgette O’Crowley’s daughter, Irene proved all there would be, and their O’Crowley line would only continue if and when Irene had children of her own.
More On The Family O’Crowley
According to O’Crowley family history, Bridgette Doyle O’Crowley… Wife to Joe and Mother to Irene Madaline died of an illness in 1916 when her daughter Irene was only twelve. The troubled marriage that involved Bridgette’s drinking husband ended then too, and almost right away Joe’s young daughter, Irene moved in with her Grandmother Sarah and her Aunt, Irene Mary. The 1920 U. S. Census listed them all living together on Lombardy Street in Newark, New Jersey. Sarah was listed as the ‘head of the household,’ Irene Mary resided there at age thirty-five, and ’granddaughter’ Irene was (questionably) listed as ‘age fourteen.’ A live-in woman housekeeper was also listed as residing at the household.
It appeared both Sarah and her Attorney Daughter, Irene could have doted on their only Granddaughter/Niece Irene Madaline O’Crowley. Attorney Irene was reported to have accompanied her younger Niece to Europe after Irene Madaline graduated high school. Irene Madaline was a pretty young woman as well, and she did have suitors as she hit her twenties. By late 1926 however, one such ‘suitor’ left Irene Madaline in a family way. With marriage to the fellow considered an unacceptable arrangement by her matriarchal Grandmother and Aunt, it was decided Irene would secretly have the child and the O’Crowley clan would do it’s best to accommodate and raise the child.
It was also about this time through Attorney Irene, the thirty-seven year old Charles Craigmile of Rantoul, Illinois was introduced to the young Irene Madaline O’Crowley. The Son of a Scotsman who had immigrated to the U. S. and became a Judge in Illinois, Charles Craigmile had good attributes, and became a good O’Crowley family friend. His wise understanding of the pending circumstances of the young and pretty Irene Madaline, left Charles agreeing to an arrangement; He would marry the pregnant Irene Madaline who was carrying another man’s child, and said child would be legally adopted and raised by Irene Madaline’s childless Uncle and Aunt, Dr. Clarence O’Crowley and his Wife, Violet… both in their late forties.
Irene’s child, a Son was born in 1927, the same year she married Charles Craigmile. The child would be named Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley Jr. and was legally adopted by Dr. Clarence and Violet.
Craigmile wise, in 1930 the U. S. Census listed the ‘head of house’ Charles and his ‘keeps house’ wife Irene Craigmile as living alone in Pequannock, New Jersey. The following year in Detroit, in late 1931 while on the road between Charles’ hometown of Rantoul and Irene’s of Newark, Charles Craigmile died in a hospital at the age of forty-two years, after he failed to recognize his own appendicitis symptoms.
Amelia and Irene
Well aware of Irene’s tragic episode, and keeping it to herself, a half a year later in the spring of 1932 Amelia Earhart flew the Atlantic solo, forever locking in her supreme legendary status as the first woman to do so. Then, soon after in the fall of 1932, Amelia Earhart and Viola Gentry encouraged and helped to get their younger widowed friend, Irene Craigmile into flying airplanes. The record conveyed how Irene Craigmile took her first flying lesson on her birthday of October 1, 1932 at Floyd Bennet Field, Long Island, NY.
It would later be verified in 1967, how Amelia, Irene Craigmile, and Viola Gentry had all been Long Island flying ‘pals’ in the early 1930s. In a way, it was as if Amelia and Viola had served as Irene’s personal mentors, all mutually aware, and Irene’s skills did improve the more times she flew.
Otherwise during the same time period Amelia and her husband, George Putnam had hired a publicist named Nina Price. A noted promoter and friend of Attorney Irene’s, Nina Price was also a well known socialite. She was English, but had grown up in British Colonial India with her parents. And she was a Zonta Sister friend of Amelia’s as well. Together, with legal contract advice and handling from Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley, in 1933 Amelia Earhart and Nina Price launched the concept for the famous Amelia Earhart signature luggage line, the same one that would be manufactured and sold in the U. S. for decades to follow. Its corporate headquarters would end up based in Newark, New Jersey. As well, Amelia also launched an original designed-by-her signature clothing line, and she even modeled her creations for fashion photographers. She, and the clothes, looked great.
But oddly enough, barely a year later… by mid-1934 Amelia was no longer interested in, nor keeping up with either one of those endeavors. It seemed, ever since the summer of 1933 when the young widow, Irene Craigmile once again realized herself to be pregnant out of wedlock, just after receiving her pilot’s license, things appeared to also change in Amelia’s world at the same time.
At first Irene Craigmile kept her pregnancy from her Aunt Irene and Grandmother, Sarah. Then, good catholic girl she was, she eloped to marry the child’s father, Alvin (Al) Heller who complied. Mr. Heller had been Irene Craigmile’s last pilot instructor. A brief love affair left them to consider their pending child. And the two were county clerk married in Ohio in August.
Irene and Al’s Son, Clarence Alvin Heller was born on March 5, 1934. To be called ‘Larry,’ he too was named after Irene’s well known physician Uncle, Dr. Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley who had adopted Irene’s first Son, and also named him ‘Clarence.’ As mentioned where Irene’s Attorney Aunt was highly respected, so too her Aunt’s Brother, Dr. O’Crowley was a distinguished and respected Urologist who would have medical teaching affiliations at Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Rutgers.
1934, Amelia and George
Within a day of Irene Craigmile Heller giving birth to she and Al’s Son in March of 1934, George Putnam’s own eldest Son, David from George’s first marriage was suddenly getting married in Florida, a surprise to his Father. From New York, Amelia merely tagged on a one line best wishes note to David in George’s congratulations to his Son, a bit uncharacteristic of her, as she had developed a friendly bond with David. It was also later noticed, how by late-March of 1934 Amelia had all but dropped out of the mainstream scene so to speak, to “recuperate” from ‘sinus headache stress.’ It was true, after her sinus operation(s) her troubles still flared up sometimes. But there was a record issue there too. Depending on what account one would later read, Amelia could have endured as many as four to five different sinus operations at different times since her WWI nurse days in Canada. (One or two operations was more like it.)
Whatever the case was, by the Spring of 1934 the plan was set: Amelia needed to get away from it all. Far away. George understood, and the explorer he was he arranged for an indefinite stay for Amelia and himself at his old friend, Carl Dunrud’s Dude Ranch in Wyoming. There, picturesque western bucolic nature, horseback riding, and fishing would be available to them both. It proved a good getaway and re-focus exercise for Amelia, and planted the permanent seed for her even further move, back to Los Angeles. In any case, from March of 1934 on Amelia was noticeably a different person. No longer was she a New York celebrity sporting her own clothing and luggage lines, flying when she could. Rather, Amelia suddenly dropped all of that and decided to move to Los Angeles, basically so she could start flying like a maniac again.
Indeed, at the other end of their Wyoming experience, one autumn evening while back in New York, Amelia announced to George how she’d decided to be the first person to solo a plane from Hawaii to Oakland. A short while later, as Amelia unpacked into her new L. A., Toluca Lake bungalow, at the same time her main residence home since 1931, the Putnam estate house belonging to and used by George and Amelia in Rye, New York… accidentally caught fire and badly burned. Many personal items of both Amelia’s and George’s were described as ‘lost’ or ‘ruined,’ to include Amelia’s basement dark room set-up, personal papers, and photo collection. George’s famous painting collection, (to include some of his friend, Rockwell Kent’s paintings) suffered losses. His treasured family book collection was spared.
By January of 1935 Amelia and George had all but permanently moved to California. As well, Amelia was already set to go after her Hawaii to Oakland record. After shipping herself and her Lockheed Vega airplane to Hawaii by boat, and having a great time plane hopping and visiting the Islands of Hawaii while receiving red carpet treatment, (during a ceremony she planted a sapling Banyon tree in Hilo that is huge today…) Amelia did successfully fly solo from Hawaii to Oakland in late January of 1935. But she wasn’t done yet. And it was also, as if… she had limited public contact all of the sudden, especially with her just previously steady Zonta Sister friends from back east.
A quick look back, revealed how throughout 1933 Amelia was endeared to both her 99s flying club as well as her many Zonta contacts from Boston to Newark, NJ. Yet by mid-1934 it really did seem as if such a life was suddenly behind her, with no solid explanation given for it. Almost as if she’d spun on a dime, and pointed herself in an entirely new direction. Was there some hidden motivation in Amelia encouraging her to behave as she did? What about her friend Irene Craigmile? Irene had known Amelia’s friend Viola Gentry since 1928 as well… but their connection had been through Amelia and her Attorney Aunt Irene.
Just after Irene delivered she and Al’s child, within a short time Amelia pulled up her eastern living stakes and moved on. What’s more, and all too curiously, it later appeared the original Irene Craigmile had somehow faded away as well. And how by the late 1930s, additional family care arrangements were made for Irene’s little Son, who would join the ranks with 1927 born Clarence Jr., who was his half brother, and 1924 born Irene Jr., who Sarah and her daughter, attorney Irene had taken in to further raise in 1928.
1935-1937
After her Hawaii to Oakland triumph, before long Amelia was entering plane races again, to add and include flying non-stop solo from L. A. to Mexico City, then non-stop solo from Mexico City to Newark. It was almost disturbing to some, the kind of marathon flying she was doing so consistently back to back, after she had basically eased way off on flying at all for the previous two and a half years.
But she kept pressing, and kept flying, and by 1936 Amelia was also ready for a new plane. She worked an agreement with Purdue University in Indiana, where she would be a guest visiting professor and lecturer there for career minded female students. So much, in exchange for Purdue’s major sponsorship in affording a twin engine Lockheed Electra Airplane for Amelia to own and fly. It would be nicknamed “The Flying Laboratory” and partially dedicated for use in aeronautical experimentations, mostly biological. Amelia agreed to those terms, of course.
In 1935 Amelia also become new friends with Jackie Cochran and her multi-millionaire husband, Floyd Odlum. During the next two years Amelia stayed with Jackie and Floyd alone at times, at their beautiful Indio-Coachella ranch estate. Jackie would later recall how during this time period she grew to be “closer to Amelia than anybody, even her husband, George Putnam.” Howard Hughes was also an infrequent visitor at the Odlum-Cochran Ranch. (Amelia’s final book, Last Flight was pre-dedicated to Floyd Odlum, still readable in all published editions.)
The new airplane was presented to Amelia at Purdue University on her thirty-ninth birthday, July 24, 1936. Its cost was eighty thousand dollars, but Amelia received a beautiful and sleek, silver Lockheed Electra Model 10E, just about the finest plane of its kind made anywhere in the world up to that point. It featured two Pratt-Whitney 550 HP Wasp engines, and Amelia would spend the following several months learning about it and breaking it in, after announcing her intentions to fly it around the world at the Equator in 1937. (To recall what such a plane looked like, the plane Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman took off in at the end of Casablanca was close to the same Lockheed Electra model as Amelia Earhart’s.)
After several months of preparations, by late March of 1937 Amelia was ready to do just that; fly around the world at the Equator. By the time she left she had outfitted her plane to have better than a thousand gallon fuel capacity for a maximum flying range of four thousand one hundred miles.
Amelia’s Left Behind Eastern Lifestyle
It can be ascertained, after leaving New York and having taken most of 1934 off, from January 1935 to the Spring of 1937 Amelia Earhart existed in a public way, only after immersing herself into a non-stop whirlwind of flying and schedules, meetings and appointments about flying, and then more flying. Her Boston and New York rise to fame years of 1928 to 1933 were hardly referenced at all, and seemed to be in the past.
For her 1937 world flight navigator, Amelia had interviewed and selected Captain Fred Noonan who’d recently left Pan Am airways, but had been known there as its top air-over-ocean navigator. She also requested Harry Manning to help navigate the journey, and the three of them successfully completed their first leg to Hawaii from Oakland that March, as they flew south-westward towards their equatorial route. Even her technical advisor, Paul Mantz hopped on for the first leg.
So much went well. But when the threesome went to continue on their journey, onward to Howland Island, during her take-off from Luke Field, Oahu Amelia accidentally ground looped, badly wrecking her landing gear and pancaking her plane. It was reported how damage repair would amount to about a third of the original cost of the plane. Still, Amelia soon announced her plans to continue with her world flight effort anyway. She mentioned by June she’d hopefully be ready again with her repaired plane, to fly around the world at the Equator. Only this time she’d fly west to east, instead of east to west. And Harry Manning would not be going along anymore, and Paul Mantz and several others who had been in her planning loop, were no longer involved. It seemed the military and the Coast Guard were now going to assist her more, in an effort to help make sure of Amelia’s success.
What About Irene Craigmile?
Back to Irene Craigmile.
History said it was all just one giant coincidence. Except, had history ever really looked into it? ‘Official history’ never had, to be sure. This is why the subject remained a debated issue for over forty years, since the initial awareness of a physical-truth about Irene Craigmile first alighted in 1965. So where does Irene Craigmile fit in?
Again, in early April of 2006, Irene Craigmile’s seventy two year old Son, Clarence ‘Larry’ Heller identified a completely different person to have been his early-1940s childhood ‘Mother,’ as opposed to the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965, who for at least two previous decades had been employing the same ‘Irene’ identity, while commonly known as well, as Larry Heller’s Mother.
Oddly enough, in 1946 the Long Island, NY Zonta chapter identified a different woman as “Irene Craigmile.” Although she used the same name, she was easily identifiable as another person when observed with close scrutiny. And prior to the mid-1940s the Zonta identified Irene Craigmile appeared nowhere in photos identified as Irene Craigmile, or ‘O‘Crowley’or ‘Heller.’ The same 'Zonta' Irene also married Englishman Guy Bolam in 1958, to then become known as 'Irene Bolam' Henceforth.
The toughest hurdle, was overcoming the challenge to be able to display how neither one of the two Irene Craigmile individuals, had been the original Irene O’Crowley Craigmile.
Yet the identity separation was clear and completely obvious, even to the naked eye. There was no doubt anymore, dating back to late 2002 and the first plural Irenes verification, it came to exist as non-recognized factual information; more than one individual human being had in life been identified as the same Irene Craigmile Bolam to the public. Specifically, such a thing had been done in a highly contrived way through the newspaper media. It was also certain, photo forgeries appeared in at least one major newspaper series, ostensibly to help accomplish the feat of blending two human identities into one. So much, marked no less than an Orwellian realization.
The question became… who, or what ‘big brother’ was responsible for such a thing? Who would forge and meld photographs of different people into one person for the sake of posterity? Especially in a historical sense, where the original issue of concern happened to be Joe Gervais’ suspicion of the Irene Craigmile Bolam he’d met, formerly having been known as Amelia Earhart.
The post 2002 back door revelation became; the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965 appeared nowhere in photographs identified as Irene Craigmile prior to the 1940s. So much had become a hard-nose recognizable fact. It was further reinforced in 2006, after her own Son identified an entirely different person to have been his ‘early childhood mother,’ than the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965.
Historically, the woman had remained suspect to Gervais from the time he first met her. From 1965 through 1970, culminating with the McGraw-Hill, Joe Klaas book about Gervais and his Earhart research called Amelia Earhart Lives, his curiosity about the Irene Bolam he’d met never wavered. And she had and still would prove completely evasive to him, although she remained fairly polite all the while, and she would either be coy or stand-offish about the ‘identity suspicion’ subject to her own friends and contacts.
In a 2001 on camera interview, Joe Gervais commented how the Irene Bolam he met quietly said to him “I wish you hadn’t done that” after he all but candidly took his 1965 35MM photograph of she and her husband Guy. He did ask her first, except just after she turned back from consulting with her husband about it, who told her “let’s not,” Gervais clicked his shutter anyway. The photo appeared plane as day in all twenty thousand odd copies of Amelia Earhart Lives that made it into circulation, before Irene’s lawsuit against the book caused McGraw-Hill to cease publication and withdraw it from stores.
The summary judgment hearing took five years. In early 1976 it was finalized between Gervais, Klaas, and Irene Bolam. Irene paid the Klaas-Gervais attorney a ten dollar consideration fee, and Gervais and Klaas paid Irene’s a ten dollar consideration fee, and the case was settled. Gervais later verified as did others, Irene turned down an agreed to one million dollar settlement had she provided her fingerprints as positive ID proof of her identity. But Irene refused to comply, thus turning down her chance at a grand settlement.
Lingering Doubts
On July 7, 1982 the Irene Bolam who Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965 died. Gervais still believed she had been the former Amelia Earhart.
Apparently, so did many other people. So much so, as mentioned John Burk’s Newark area newspaper, The Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune assigned two reporters in the months after Irene died, to launch an investigative series of articles addressing the possibility of said Irene having been the former Amelia Earhart. This, a full decade after the same Irene had sued to get the book Amelia Earhart Lives removed from the stores.
Irene had lived in the Newark area since the 1960s. Her British family-described ‘MI6’ husband, Guy Bolam from their 1958 marriage, passed away in early 1970, leaving Irene to contend with the accusation of her being the former Earhart alone. Except her Son did offer to help, before she sternly insisted he not intervene.
During her 1970 Amelia Earhart Lives response press conference, when Irene strongly stated she was “not a mystery woman and not Amelia Earhart” in the present tense, she had stood alone in front of many news cameras and reporters while she denounced the book. Her only companion at the press conference was a mid-30s Japanese man who had earlier approached Gervais with a question. The gentleman escorted Irene into her press conference, and he escorted her out.
During the conference Irene read her simple statement with a strong and certain tone, as she called the Joe Klaas book “a fantastic pack of lies.” She fielded no questions after she was done, and exited the room in a controlled huff.
The mentioned ‘Japanese fellow’ had previously asked Gervais a question at the Time-Life building, just prior to Irene’s press conference Joe Gervais was not permitted to attend, “Why do you think Amelia Earhart could have had access to Imperial Palace grounds, when ordinary Japanese citizens are not even permitted there?”
Gervais replied to him, “Amelia Earhart was no ordinary Japanese citizen.”
Thirty years later, Joe Gervais was still displaying to friends a photo in the newspaper of the Japanese fellow, as he stood behind Irene at her 1970 ‘press announcement’ conference. But Gervais would rarely share, the 1972 State Department ‘leak’ he documented that year, citing a Mrs. G. P. Putnam in a 1946 filed, ‘Special War Problems’ docket labeled, ‘Earhart, Amelia.’ The ‘leak’ was eventually verified through its source, Arthur Dewayne Gibson of Verdunville, West Virginia. Mr. Gibson still worked in State Department file areas then, and for quite some time he and Gervais corresponded in 1972 about what Mr. Gibson had learned there. Among Gibson’s findings were photographs of Amelia, one in front of a prototype Japanese plane, another in a strip of eight head shots, with the caption included in additional text, “Mrs. Putnam henceforth wishes to be recognized as a naturalized citizen to the Imperial Nipponese Islands.” The request was dated August 19, 1939. The Sino-Japanese war had escalated, Germany was just about to invade Poland.
Twelve years later though, Irene was gone, sadly a cancer victim. She died in Roosevelt Hospital in Edison, New Jersey. Her friend, John Burk who was Publisher of the Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune, was instrumental in arranging for a lavish memorial dinner in Irene’s memory and honor three months after her passing. Of note, John Burk also arranged for and guided the investigative news article series about his late friend, Irene as well. And it was in said series the mentioned ‘photo forgeries’ were used to blend plural individuals into one.
1924
In late 1923 Amelia Earhart, then twenty-six years old and not yet famous, was courting two beaus; Sam Chapman who was a gentleman boarder at her family home in Los Angeles, and Lloyd Royer, a pilot and plane mechanic who she’d known since 1921, when she learned to fly planes in L. A.
Within Amelia’s two California boyfriends, both who proposed marriage to her, a hypothetical perfect husband for her might have been found. She ultimately chose neither. Not only that, in January of 1924 Amelia suddenly made a decision confusing to everybody who felt they knew her well; she moved out of her family home alone to an apartment on the opposite side of Los Angeles, fairly removed from all she had known in L. A. from 1921 to 1923. Sam Chapman didn’t get it. Neither did Lloyd Royer.
Soon, Amelia’s Mother Amy Otis Earhart whose Father had been a famous Kansas Judge, announced she was divorcing her Lawyer husband, Edwin Earhart. And after contacting Amelia’s Sister Muriel about it, Amy also moved to the other side of L. A. to live with Amelia.
Not Long after that, Muriel, younger than Amelia by two years quit her teaching job in Huntington Beach and relocated to Boston, Massachusetts… where her Mother Amy, and Sister Amelia would soon join her. Looking back after Amelia became famous, no one was aware how the reason for all of the sudden abruptness in early 1924, had to do with Amelia’s own secret carrying of Lloyd Royer’s child.
After leaving L. A. in April of 1924, under the cover of a cross country road trip that would take nearly two months and cover seven thousand miles… Amelia Earhart, while with her Mother in Canada, gave birth to a little girl.
Later, no one put two and two together… Amelia had been a proficient budding photographer just before she left Los Angeles… yet not one photo of she and/or her Mother taken during their 1924 road trip… ever made it into any of the many various major books about Amelia’s life. Indeed, nary a verified photograph of Amelia from the year 1924 would ever appear at all, anywhere.
In 1923 Amelia had pre-mentioned a possible return move to the east coast. When she left L. A. in 1924 she’d spoken of her time crunch to re-enroll at her old school, Columbia University in the Fall of 1924. Instead, her Sister Muriel later described how Amelia had a “bone removed” from her nasal passage as soon as she arrived in Boston in the summer of 1924. Then, Amelia spent the next months living and recuperating in Great Neck on Long Island with the well-to-do Stabler family, who were Earhart family friends from before, and included Amelia’s friend, Merian. Amelia did eventually re-enroll at Columbia, but not until February of 1925, and only to drop out before completing any classes.
It was never exactly certain how the issue of Amelia’s child was handled care-wise. It was easily assumed Mother Earhart and Sister Muriel helped to conceal the situation, quite possibly the Stablers too, where by the time Amelia was hired at Denison House in Boston in 1926, mixed in with many other immigrant and orphaned children, supposedly was Amelia’s own non-recognized birth daughter, by then aged two years and walking.
Later, after her surprise offer to fly in the Friendship in 1928 made her instantly famous, George Putnam staged a publicity photo featuring Amelia in her roadster Kissell Car, top down, with a multitude of all aged Denison House kids piled around her. It became a well known photograph. Most notably on the hood of Amelia’s car, sat a four year old little girl who Amelia is shown looking up to as the little girl is turned back to speak to her. Nary a soul ever knew or would have guessed, such a little girl was Amelia’s daughter, who would soon be taken in to be raised in the O‘Crowley family household, and she would further be known as “Irene Jr.”
Amelia had liked her job working with the Denison House children, and the children there adored her too. She was also finally able to start flying again when she could, after having pretty much abandoned it in 1924 and 1925. Soon, after she began flying over the Boston area she started attracting attention to herself. So much so, a few society notables were soon made aware of the flying woman-settlement house worker.
Then in March of 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person ever to fly a plane solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the world was suddenly smaller. For men.
So it seemed it would only be a matter of time before promoters would work up a scheme to transport a woman across by plane as well. Even if only as a passenger at first. Enter George Putnam.
The Interview
George Palmer Putnam, of the famous G. P. Putnam’s Sons publishing family was not the head honcho when he called Amelia. He was on an assignment to help find a replacement for Ms. Amy Phipps Guest, who decided not to become the first woman to fly in a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. Famous explorer Hilton Railey had heard of Amelia’s profession and flying exploits, knew she was single too, so he asked George Putnam to track down the woman known as Amelia Earhart who worked and resided at Denison Settlement House in Boston. And Putnam, who lived in New York, did call Denison House.
Amelia was taken by surprise that day. She knew the Putnam name of course, even knew who George was, so she had no reason to doubt the reality of his offer. She also agreed to be sworn to secrecy on the matter until just before the flight took place. Her co-workers would not know about it, not even her family would know about it. It was also suggested she write a last letter in case the plane for some reason, didn’t make it.
Putnam had mentioned the formality of an interview to Amelia, that would solidify her qualifying as their number one choice, to complete the three person, ‘two men and a woman’ flight team soon to cross the Atlantic. Amelia was thirty years old then. As part of her interview process she was likely asked if she’d ever been married or had children. She would have easily said ‘no’ to both questions. She knew any ’yes’ would have lessoned her chances to participate in the flight. She knew Putnam was looking for a responsible and courageous woman, who sported an untarnished reputation. Amelia wasn’t about to deny his right to her there.
Meanwhile Sam Chapman had earlier moved back to Boston, still trying to court Amelia. She did agree to be engaged to him for awhile, but her sudden fame put an end to that, and the two grew apart.
As for Lloyd Royer, Amelia and Lloyd had gone into business together in 1922, hauling sand a gravel loads to construction sights. Amelia had purchased and owned the truck, Lloyd drove it. Lloyd kept the business going alone for awhile after Amelia left L. A. in 1924, and the two remained in touch letter wise. [She secretly ‘went out with’ Lloyd again after she returned to L. A. in 1935, according to Lloyd’s progeny. And it was true, Amelia did end up getting Lloyd assigned to the Lockheed team that built her Electra.]
So the interview went well for Amelia, and it began a sequence of professional public events that would continuously play out for the next nine years of Amelia’s life. And flying was always her best getaway.
She would meet President Harding, President Hoover, and FDR. She would become a trusted friend of Eleanor Roosevelt’s. She would be revered by Zonta and the Ninety-Nines, and linked romantically at different times to Gene Vidal, Carl Harper, Paul Mantz, and even Prince Edward of Wales.
She tolerated omnipresent George, and surreptitiously monitored her daughter, Irene Jr. who had grown up between the O’Crowley and Stabler households. She waited too long, and anymore it would have proved all but impossible for Amelia to confide in George about Irene Jr. anyway. It became certain, George Putnam never did know about her. Yet by 1937 Irene Jr. was thirteen years old and helping to baby-sit care for little Larry Heller, who at age three had never known his own birth mother. Medical complications from his birth episode had left his mother ill, to soon die as well.
Distancing herself from all of it was actually Amelia’s smartest choice. She had always kept her familial relationship with the O’Crowley’s extremely private, so nary a soul knew she even had a friendship there to maintain. Or of her biological daughter living in their midst.
By 1940 Irene Jr. and little Larry Heller were living in Mineola on Long Island with their Aunt Gert. At her young sixteen years, Irene Jr. had become more of a maternal figure to little Larry than anything else. He never knew his real mother, and Irene Jr. had always been there. As well, Larry’s Father, Al had been working in Buffalo at the Curtis-Wright plane facility, something Amelia had pre-arranged for him before she left. It was also the same year the marriage between Al and Irene was officially annulled. Alvin Heller participated to get it all done.
[Also refer to www.irene-amelia.com for more info & forensic comparisons.]
Chapter Two
A True Story Of A Shared Identity
In 1970 the McGraw-Hill Company published a book that shot to the top of the best seller’s list, and caused a brief national news sensation.
The book pointed a finger at a living woman known as ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam,’ while it basically accused her of not being the original ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam.’
Mrs. Bolam, recently widowed that year after losing her British husband, Guy Bolam, promptly and stoutly lawyer’d-up to sue McGraw-Hill and the book’s Authors. Soon afterward, the whole thing was being downplayed as a perpetrated hoax, the book was removed from the stores, the authors’ lives were ruined, and the already proven enigmatic Irene Craigmile Bolam would continue living her life until she died in 1982, all be her always a tad scrutinized and suspected… of something.
In 2006 Irene Craigmile Bolam's only child, one Larry Heller who was born in 1934, identified a woman as the ‘Mother’ he recalled from his childhood.
The problem became, in 1970 the McGraw-Hill book identified an entirely different woman than her own Son did as “Irene Craigmile Bolam.”
About Irene Craigmile Bolam? To conceptualize, while all standard information declares the permanent loss of Amelia Earhart taking place in 1937, a bit of history on the subject matter seemed clearly and purposefully forgotten by official sanctum well before the 1960s. Or, by the time the more-modern view of Earhart’s past misadventure set in.
Since 1937, to try and offer any possibility of Earhart’s continued survival beyond July 2 of that year only received ‘moot point’ and ‘on to the next subject’ replies in all important U. S. government & military circles. With one slight exception; a possibility that silently persisted in the back of some in-the-know personnel; how Amelia had actually survived, and a few high-level individuals were quietly aware of it.
Even certain people who'd known Amelia suspected it. Yet no one could extend such a belief, and then fathom the possibility, any at all for that matter, of Amelia Earhart surviving to ultimately change her name, after she’d experienced and endured profound spiritual, political, and even physical appearance changes. That… seemed completely absurd.
The Other Women
In late 2002 a forensic discovery was made. The discovery revealed how different women had at different times been identified to the public as the same ‘Irene Bolam,’ full name, “Irene Madaline nee O’Crowley Craigmile (Heller) Bolam,” AKA “Irene Craigmile,” and/or later just ‘Irene Bolam.’ (Name ‘Heller’ removed by annulment, 1940.)
In 1965 a retired Air Force Major, Joe Gervais met a woman who identified herself to him as ‘Irene Craigmile Bolam’ at a gathering of well known retired pilots on Long Island, New York. In 1970 the retired Major and a writer-partner of his, Joe Klaas had a major book published by McGraw-Hill. The book was called Amelia Earhart Lives. It featured the 1965 medium close-up 35MM photograph Joe Gervais took of Irene Bolam the day he met her. The issue of the book caused quite a national news stir. Except within a few weeks Irene Bolam did sue, and soon the book was removed from the stores.
New York literati back then did recall though, how just years earlier in 1966 Doubleday published a book by Fred Goerner titled The Search for Amelia Earhart. The book had been a national best seller, having been written with cooperation from, and information in accordance to WWII U. S. Pacific Fleet Commander, Admiral Chester Arthur Nimitz. Nimitz had confided in Goerner how Earhart’s Imperial Islands survival in the custody of Japan had been ‘known and documented in Washington’ after she was reported missing in 1937. Joe Gervais had earlier learned of such a truth as well, and it led to his deeper curiosity about the Irene Craigmile Bolam he met in 1965. For even Nimitz seemed to feel it was all over long ago for Earhart, even though his version of the story was considerably different than any crashed and sank version.
And Nimitz had been there learning about Earhart and other intelligence relays, before the broadcast news versions would omit or twist things for the public. Indeed Admiral Nimitz knew more than most, he having been placed in charge of the Marshall Islands after U. S. occupation in 1944.
Sixteen years later in 1960, USAF Captains Joe Gervais and Bob Dinger were called before a U. S. military panel at the Fuchu Airbase in Japan, where they were questioned about their privately conducted ‘Earhart investigations’ while stationed in the Pacific. Gervais and Dinger presented a list of seventy different statements they’d collected from people scattered around the ‘war time’ Japanese mandate islands. Their statements and other information they gathered was confiscated from them, and Gervais and Dinger were advised not to investigate Earhart while still active military men. They did anyway. Dinger stopped investigating Earhart in 1962, but because Gervais persisted on his Earhart trail, the Air Force saw no choice but to retire him as a Major in 1963. Two years later he met Irene Craigmile Bolam, after being invited by one of Amelia‘s past good friends, Viola Gentry to come and lecture about his Earhart investigations.
Of course, the singular Irene Bolam’s history described a life from her birth in 1904 to her death in 1982. And there certainly had been an original Irene O’Crowley Craigmile, but neither person identified in the shown photos appeared to be the original. That meant there had actually been three; the original, and two later impostors.
The original Irene, after being born into the large Irish catholic O’Crowley family of northern New Jersey in 1904, became Irene Craigmile after her first marriage to Charles Craigmile in 1927.
The history of the original Irene Craigmile is traceable beyond her first marriage though. It was eventually learned how Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley, Irene Craigmile’s maternal Aunt had been a good friend and confidant of Amelia Earhart’s from the moment she became famous and on. Soon more information would be learned, and the question did later become, ‘Who died as Irene Craigmile Bolam in 1982?’ For such a person most definitely had not been, the original Irene Craigmile, nor did she appear to have been the woman her son identified in 2006 as his Mother.
Instant Fame, Meet Attorney O’Crowley
After her 1928 Friendship Flight suddenly made her famous, Amelia grew intent on joining the Zonta Sisterhood, a distinguished national club of successful career women founded in Buffalo a decade earlier. One of the first persons Amelia became good friends with after joining the Zontas, was Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley who practiced law in Manhattan, Long Island, and Newark. Attorney Irene first introduced her newlywed Niece, Irene Craigmile to Amelia in 1928 at a Zonta dinner given in Amelia’s honor. (Attorney Irene had emceed the dinner event. )
Three years later in the autumn of 1931, the same year Amelia married George Putnam, Irene Craigmile’s husband Charles suddenly died of an appendicitis attack while he and Irene were on a road trip together.
Charles Craigmile had been a successful Civil Engineer who was fifteen years older than his wife. He had just been awarded the Newark Watershed Dam contract, an assignment that assured an income boon for he and Irene years ahead. Instead, Charles’ tragic death left his wife Irene of four years, a widow at age twenty-seven. Fortunately, there was a life insurance policy in Irene’s name.
The O’Crowley Family of Newark, New Jersey
After arriving from Ireland, Sarah Rutherford married Richard Joseph O’Crowley in 1877, whose parents were also Irish-Scot immigrants. They named their first born Son Joseph Richard who arrived in 1878. In 1880 their next Son, Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley arrived. Then came their daughter Edna Madaline in 1883, and last but not least, Amelia’s future friend, Irene Mary O’Crowley arrived in 1885. (After she became an attorney many years later, Irene Mary O’Crowley adjusted her middle name to “Rutherford” for the sake of a better legal practice moniker.)
Sarah and Richard’s oldest Son, Joe O’Crowley became a plumber like his Father. He met one Bridgette Doyle in 1900 and they were wed two years later. In 1904 their only child, a daughter they named Irene Madaline was born to them. Described as a ‘home birth,’ no birth certificate for the couple’s daughter, Irene was ever filed, evidently.
As the couple raised Irene, trouble loomed from Joe’s drinking. Sometimes he didn’t come home. The 1910 U. S. Census does not list Joe as living with Bridgette and his daughter, Irene. Years later it would be confirmed by family descendants how out of Sarah and Richard’s four children, their eldest Son Joe had posed their only contentions.
Their second oldest Son, Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley was exceptionally bright, and grew up to attend Columbia University on his way to becoming a prominent Urologist Physician. Meanwhile his Sisters, Edna Madaline and Irene Mary attended Trinity College together. Edna would marry, although she would never have children. Irene Mary O’Crowley did not marry until much later in life, and she never had Children either. Rather, Irene Mary furthered her education until she was among the first women to pass New Jersey’s State Bar exam on her way to becoming an attorney in 1919.
So it seemed where O’Crowley family progeny was concerned, Joseph and Bridgette O’Crowley’s daughter, Irene proved all there would be, and their O’Crowley line would only continue if and when Irene had children of her own.
More On The Family O’Crowley
According to O’Crowley family history, Bridgette Doyle O’Crowley… Wife to Joe and Mother to Irene Madaline died of an illness in 1916 when her daughter Irene was only twelve. The troubled marriage that involved Bridgette’s drinking husband ended then too, and almost right away Joe’s young daughter, Irene moved in with her Grandmother Sarah and her Aunt, Irene Mary. The 1920 U. S. Census listed them all living together on Lombardy Street in Newark, New Jersey. Sarah was listed as the ‘head of the household,’ Irene Mary resided there at age thirty-five, and ’granddaughter’ Irene was (questionably) listed as ‘age fourteen.’ A live-in woman housekeeper was also listed as residing at the household.
It appeared both Sarah and her Attorney Daughter, Irene could have doted on their only Granddaughter/Niece Irene Madaline O’Crowley. Attorney Irene was reported to have accompanied her younger Niece to Europe after Irene Madaline graduated high school. Irene Madaline was a pretty young woman as well, and she did have suitors as she hit her twenties. By late 1926 however, one such ‘suitor’ left Irene Madaline in a family way. With marriage to the fellow considered an unacceptable arrangement by her matriarchal Grandmother and Aunt, it was decided Irene would secretly have the child and the O’Crowley clan would do it’s best to accommodate and raise the child.
It was also about this time through Attorney Irene, the thirty-seven year old Charles Craigmile of Rantoul, Illinois was introduced to the young Irene Madaline O’Crowley. The Son of a Scotsman who had immigrated to the U. S. and became a Judge in Illinois, Charles Craigmile had good attributes, and became a good O’Crowley family friend. His wise understanding of the pending circumstances of the young and pretty Irene Madaline, left Charles agreeing to an arrangement; He would marry the pregnant Irene Madaline who was carrying another man’s child, and said child would be legally adopted and raised by Irene Madaline’s childless Uncle and Aunt, Dr. Clarence O’Crowley and his Wife, Violet… both in their late forties.
Irene’s child, a Son was born in 1927, the same year she married Charles Craigmile. The child would be named Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley Jr. and was legally adopted by Dr. Clarence and Violet.
Craigmile wise, in 1930 the U. S. Census listed the ‘head of house’ Charles and his ‘keeps house’ wife Irene Craigmile as living alone in Pequannock, New Jersey. The following year in Detroit, in late 1931 while on the road between Charles’ hometown of Rantoul and Irene’s of Newark, Charles Craigmile died in a hospital at the age of forty-two years, after he failed to recognize his own appendicitis symptoms.
Amelia and Irene
Well aware of Irene’s tragic episode, and keeping it to herself, a half a year later in the spring of 1932 Amelia Earhart flew the Atlantic solo, forever locking in her supreme legendary status as the first woman to do so. Then, soon after in the fall of 1932, Amelia Earhart and Viola Gentry encouraged and helped to get their younger widowed friend, Irene Craigmile into flying airplanes. The record conveyed how Irene Craigmile took her first flying lesson on her birthday of October 1, 1932 at Floyd Bennet Field, Long Island, NY.
It would later be verified in 1967, how Amelia, Irene Craigmile, and Viola Gentry had all been Long Island flying ‘pals’ in the early 1930s. In a way, it was as if Amelia and Viola had served as Irene’s personal mentors, all mutually aware, and Irene’s skills did improve the more times she flew.
Otherwise during the same time period Amelia and her husband, George Putnam had hired a publicist named Nina Price. A noted promoter and friend of Attorney Irene’s, Nina Price was also a well known socialite. She was English, but had grown up in British Colonial India with her parents. And she was a Zonta Sister friend of Amelia’s as well. Together, with legal contract advice and handling from Attorney Irene Rutherford O’Crowley, in 1933 Amelia Earhart and Nina Price launched the concept for the famous Amelia Earhart signature luggage line, the same one that would be manufactured and sold in the U. S. for decades to follow. Its corporate headquarters would end up based in Newark, New Jersey. As well, Amelia also launched an original designed-by-her signature clothing line, and she even modeled her creations for fashion photographers. She, and the clothes, looked great.
But oddly enough, barely a year later… by mid-1934 Amelia was no longer interested in, nor keeping up with either one of those endeavors. It seemed, ever since the summer of 1933 when the young widow, Irene Craigmile once again realized herself to be pregnant out of wedlock, just after receiving her pilot’s license, things appeared to also change in Amelia’s world at the same time.
At first Irene Craigmile kept her pregnancy from her Aunt Irene and Grandmother, Sarah. Then, good catholic girl she was, she eloped to marry the child’s father, Alvin (Al) Heller who complied. Mr. Heller had been Irene Craigmile’s last pilot instructor. A brief love affair left them to consider their pending child. And the two were county clerk married in Ohio in August.
Irene and Al’s Son, Clarence Alvin Heller was born on March 5, 1934. To be called ‘Larry,’ he too was named after Irene’s well known physician Uncle, Dr. Clarence Rutherford O’Crowley who had adopted Irene’s first Son, and also named him ‘Clarence.’ As mentioned where Irene’s Attorney Aunt was highly respected, so too her Aunt’s Brother, Dr. O’Crowley was a distinguished and respected Urologist who would have medical teaching affiliations at Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Rutgers.
1934, Amelia and George
Within a day of Irene Craigmile Heller giving birth to she and Al’s Son in March of 1934, George Putnam’s own eldest Son, David from George’s first marriage was suddenly getting married in Florida, a surprise to his Father. From New York, Amelia merely tagged on a one line best wishes note to David in George’s congratulations to his Son, a bit uncharacteristic of her, as she had developed a friendly bond with David. It was also later noticed, how by late-March of 1934 Amelia had all but dropped out of the mainstream scene so to speak, to “recuperate” from ‘sinus headache stress.’ It was true, after her sinus operation(s) her troubles still flared up sometimes. But there was a record issue there too. Depending on what account one would later read, Amelia could have endured as many as four to five different sinus operations at different times since her WWI nurse days in Canada. (One or two operations was more like it.)
Whatever the case was, by the Spring of 1934 the plan was set: Amelia needed to get away from it all. Far away. George understood, and the explorer he was he arranged for an indefinite stay for Amelia and himself at his old friend, Carl Dunrud’s Dude Ranch in Wyoming. There, picturesque western bucolic nature, horseback riding, and fishing would be available to them both. It proved a good getaway and re-focus exercise for Amelia, and planted the permanent seed for her even further move, back to Los Angeles. In any case, from March of 1934 on Amelia was noticeably a different person. No longer was she a New York celebrity sporting her own clothing and luggage lines, flying when she could. Rather, Amelia suddenly dropped all of that and decided to move to Los Angeles, basically so she could start flying like a maniac again.
Indeed, at the other end of their Wyoming experience, one autumn evening while back in New York, Amelia announced to George how she’d decided to be the first person to solo a plane from Hawaii to Oakland. A short while later, as Amelia unpacked into her new L. A., Toluca Lake bungalow, at the same time her main residence home since 1931, the Putnam estate house belonging to and used by George and Amelia in Rye, New York… accidentally caught fire and badly burned. Many personal items of both Amelia’s and George’s were described as ‘lost’ or ‘ruined,’ to include Amelia’s basement dark room set-up, personal papers, and photo collection. George’s famous painting collection, (to include some of his friend, Rockwell Kent’s paintings) suffered losses. His treasured family book collection was spared.
By January of 1935 Amelia and George had all but permanently moved to California. As well, Amelia was already set to go after her Hawaii to Oakland record. After shipping herself and her Lockheed Vega airplane to Hawaii by boat, and having a great time plane hopping and visiting the Islands of Hawaii while receiving red carpet treatment, (during a ceremony she planted a sapling Banyon tree in Hilo that is huge today…) Amelia did successfully fly solo from Hawaii to Oakland in late January of 1935. But she wasn’t done yet. And it was also, as if… she had limited public contact all of the sudden, especially with her just previously steady Zonta Sister friends from back east.
A quick look back, revealed how throughout 1933 Amelia was endeared to both her 99s flying club as well as her many Zonta contacts from Boston to Newark, NJ. Yet by mid-1934 it really did seem as if such a life was suddenly behind her, with no solid explanation given for it. Almost as if she’d spun on a dime, and pointed herself in an entirely new direction. Was there some hidden motivation in Amelia encouraging her to behave as she did? What about her friend Irene Craigmile? Irene had known Amelia’s friend Viola Gentry since 1928 as well… but their connection had been through Amelia and her Attorney Aunt Irene.
Just after Irene delivered she and Al’s child, within a short time Amelia pulled up her eastern living stakes and moved on. What’s more, and all too curiously, it later appeared the original Irene Craigmile had somehow faded away as well. And how by the late 1930s, additional family care arrangements were made for Irene’s little Son, who would join the ranks with 1927 born Clarence Jr., who was his half brother, and 1924 born Irene Jr., who Sarah and her daughter, attorney Irene had taken in to further raise in 1928.
1935-1937
After her Hawaii to Oakland triumph, before long Amelia was entering plane races again, to add and include flying non-stop solo from L. A. to Mexico City, then non-stop solo from Mexico City to Newark. It was almost disturbing to some, the kind of marathon flying she was doing so consistently back to back, after she had basically eased way off on flying at all for the previous two and a half years.
But she kept pressing, and kept flying, and by 1936 Amelia was also ready for a new plane. She worked an agreement with Purdue University in Indiana, where she would be a guest visiting professor and lecturer there for career minded female students. So much, in exchange for Purdue’s major sponsorship in affording a twin engine Lockheed Electra Airplane for Amelia to own and fly. It would be nicknamed “The Flying Laboratory” and partially dedicated for use in aeronautical experimentations, mostly biological. Amelia agreed to those terms, of course.
In 1935 Amelia also become new friends with Jackie Cochran and her multi-millionaire husband, Floyd Odlum. During the next two years Amelia stayed with Jackie and Floyd alone at times, at their beautiful Indio-Coachella ranch estate. Jackie would later recall how during this time period she grew to be “closer to Amelia than anybody, even her husband, George Putnam.” Howard Hughes was also an infrequent visitor at the Odlum-Cochran Ranch. (Amelia’s final book, Last Flight was pre-dedicated to Floyd Odlum, still readable in all published editions.)
The new airplane was presented to Amelia at Purdue University on her thirty-ninth birthday, July 24, 1936. Its cost was eighty thousand dollars, but Amelia received a beautiful and sleek, silver Lockheed Electra Model 10E, just about the finest plane of its kind made anywhere in the world up to that point. It featured two Pratt-Whitney 550 HP Wasp engines, and Amelia would spend the following several months learning about it and breaking it in, after announcing her intentions to fly it around the world at the Equator in 1937. (To recall what such a plane looked like, the plane Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman took off in at the end of Casablanca was close to the same Lockheed Electra model as Amelia Earhart’s.)
After several months of preparations, by late March of 1937 Amelia was ready to do just that; fly around the world at the Equator. By the time she left she had outfitted her plane to have better than a thousand gallon fuel capacity for a maximum flying range of four thousand one hundred miles.
Amelia’s Left Behind Eastern Lifestyle
It can be ascertained, after leaving New York and having taken most of 1934 off, from January 1935 to the Spring of 1937 Amelia Earhart existed in a public way, only after immersing herself into a non-stop whirlwind of flying and schedules, meetings and appointments about flying, and then more flying. Her Boston and New York rise to fame years of 1928 to 1933 were hardly referenced at all, and seemed to be in the past.
For her 1937 world flight navigator, Amelia had interviewed and selected Captain Fred Noonan who’d recently left Pan Am airways, but had been known there as its top air-over-ocean navigator. She also requested Harry Manning to help navigate the journey, and the three of them successfully completed their first leg to Hawaii from Oakland that March, as they flew south-westward towards their equatorial route. Even her technical advisor, Paul Mantz hopped on for the first leg.
So much went well. But when the threesome went to continue on their journey, onward to Howland Island, during her take-off from Luke Field, Oahu Amelia accidentally ground looped, badly wrecking her landing gear and pancaking her plane. It was reported how damage repair would amount to about a third of the original cost of the plane. Still, Amelia soon announced her plans to continue with her world flight effort anyway. She mentioned by June she’d hopefully be ready again with her repaired plane, to fly around the world at the Equator. Only this time she’d fly west to east, instead of east to west. And Harry Manning would not be going along anymore, and Paul Mantz and several others who had been in her planning loop, were no longer involved. It seemed the military and the Coast Guard were now going to assist her more, in an effort to help make sure of Amelia’s success.
What About Irene Craigmile?
Back to Irene Craigmile.
History said it was all just one giant coincidence. Except, had history ever really looked into it? ‘Official history’ never had, to be sure. This is why the subject remained a debated issue for over forty years, since the initial awareness of a physical-truth about Irene Craigmile first alighted in 1965. So where does Irene Craigmile fit in?
Again, in early April of 2006, Irene Craigmile’s seventy two year old Son, Clarence ‘Larry’ Heller identified a completely different person to have been his early-1940s childhood ‘Mother,’ as opposed to the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965, who for at least two previous decades had been employing the same ‘Irene’ identity, while commonly known as well, as Larry Heller’s Mother.
Oddly enough, in 1946 the Long Island, NY Zonta chapter identified a different woman as “Irene Craigmile.” Although she used the same name, she was easily identifiable as another person when observed with close scrutiny. And prior to the mid-1940s the Zonta identified Irene Craigmile appeared nowhere in photos identified as Irene Craigmile, or ‘O‘Crowley’or ‘Heller.’ The same 'Zonta' Irene also married Englishman Guy Bolam in 1958, to then become known as 'Irene Bolam' Henceforth.
The toughest hurdle, was overcoming the challenge to be able to display how neither one of the two Irene Craigmile individuals, had been the original Irene O’Crowley Craigmile.
Yet the identity separation was clear and completely obvious, even to the naked eye. There was no doubt anymore, dating back to late 2002 and the first plural Irenes verification, it came to exist as non-recognized factual information; more than one individual human being had in life been identified as the same Irene Craigmile Bolam to the public. Specifically, such a thing had been done in a highly contrived way through the newspaper media. It was also certain, photo forgeries appeared in at least one major newspaper series, ostensibly to help accomplish the feat of blending two human identities into one. So much, marked no less than an Orwellian realization.
The question became… who, or what ‘big brother’ was responsible for such a thing? Who would forge and meld photographs of different people into one person for the sake of posterity? Especially in a historical sense, where the original issue of concern happened to be Joe Gervais’ suspicion of the Irene Craigmile Bolam he’d met, formerly having been known as Amelia Earhart.
The post 2002 back door revelation became; the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965 appeared nowhere in photographs identified as Irene Craigmile prior to the 1940s. So much had become a hard-nose recognizable fact. It was further reinforced in 2006, after her own Son identified an entirely different person to have been his ‘early childhood mother,’ than the woman Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965.
Historically, the woman had remained suspect to Gervais from the time he first met her. From 1965 through 1970, culminating with the McGraw-Hill, Joe Klaas book about Gervais and his Earhart research called Amelia Earhart Lives, his curiosity about the Irene Bolam he’d met never wavered. And she had and still would prove completely evasive to him, although she remained fairly polite all the while, and she would either be coy or stand-offish about the ‘identity suspicion’ subject to her own friends and contacts.
In a 2001 on camera interview, Joe Gervais commented how the Irene Bolam he met quietly said to him “I wish you hadn’t done that” after he all but candidly took his 1965 35MM photograph of she and her husband Guy. He did ask her first, except just after she turned back from consulting with her husband about it, who told her “let’s not,” Gervais clicked his shutter anyway. The photo appeared plane as day in all twenty thousand odd copies of Amelia Earhart Lives that made it into circulation, before Irene’s lawsuit against the book caused McGraw-Hill to cease publication and withdraw it from stores.
The summary judgment hearing took five years. In early 1976 it was finalized between Gervais, Klaas, and Irene Bolam. Irene paid the Klaas-Gervais attorney a ten dollar consideration fee, and Gervais and Klaas paid Irene’s a ten dollar consideration fee, and the case was settled. Gervais later verified as did others, Irene turned down an agreed to one million dollar settlement had she provided her fingerprints as positive ID proof of her identity. But Irene refused to comply, thus turning down her chance at a grand settlement.
Lingering Doubts
On July 7, 1982 the Irene Bolam who Joe Gervais met and photographed in 1965 died. Gervais still believed she had been the former Amelia Earhart.
Apparently, so did many other people. So much so, as mentioned John Burk’s Newark area newspaper, The Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune assigned two reporters in the months after Irene died, to launch an investigative series of articles addressing the possibility of said Irene having been the former Amelia Earhart. This, a full decade after the same Irene had sued to get the book Amelia Earhart Lives removed from the stores.
Irene had lived in the Newark area since the 1960s. Her British family-described ‘MI6’ husband, Guy Bolam from their 1958 marriage, passed away in early 1970, leaving Irene to contend with the accusation of her being the former Earhart alone. Except her Son did offer to help, before she sternly insisted he not intervene.
During her 1970 Amelia Earhart Lives response press conference, when Irene strongly stated she was “not a mystery woman and not Amelia Earhart” in the present tense, she had stood alone in front of many news cameras and reporters while she denounced the book. Her only companion at the press conference was a mid-30s Japanese man who had earlier approached Gervais with a question. The gentleman escorted Irene into her press conference, and he escorted her out.
During the conference Irene read her simple statement with a strong and certain tone, as she called the Joe Klaas book “a fantastic pack of lies.” She fielded no questions after she was done, and exited the room in a controlled huff.
The mentioned ‘Japanese fellow’ had previously asked Gervais a question at the Time-Life building, just prior to Irene’s press conference Joe Gervais was not permitted to attend, “Why do you think Amelia Earhart could have had access to Imperial Palace grounds, when ordinary Japanese citizens are not even permitted there?”
Gervais replied to him, “Amelia Earhart was no ordinary Japanese citizen.”
Thirty years later, Joe Gervais was still displaying to friends a photo in the newspaper of the Japanese fellow, as he stood behind Irene at her 1970 ‘press announcement’ conference. But Gervais would rarely share, the 1972 State Department ‘leak’ he documented that year, citing a Mrs. G. P. Putnam in a 1946 filed, ‘Special War Problems’ docket labeled, ‘Earhart, Amelia.’ The ‘leak’ was eventually verified through its source, Arthur Dewayne Gibson of Verdunville, West Virginia. Mr. Gibson still worked in State Department file areas then, and for quite some time he and Gervais corresponded in 1972 about what Mr. Gibson had learned there. Among Gibson’s findings were photographs of Amelia, one in front of a prototype Japanese plane, another in a strip of eight head shots, with the caption included in additional text, “Mrs. Putnam henceforth wishes to be recognized as a naturalized citizen to the Imperial Nipponese Islands.” The request was dated August 19, 1939. The Sino-Japanese war had escalated, Germany was just about to invade Poland.
Twelve years later though, Irene was gone, sadly a cancer victim. She died in Roosevelt Hospital in Edison, New Jersey. Her friend, John Burk who was Publisher of the Woodbridge New Jersey News Tribune, was instrumental in arranging for a lavish memorial dinner in Irene’s memory and honor three months after her passing. Of note, John Burk also arranged for and guided the investigative news article series about his late friend, Irene as well. And it was in said series the mentioned ‘photo forgeries’ were used to blend plural individuals into one.
1924
In late 1923 Amelia Earhart, then twenty-six years old and not yet famous, was courting two beaus; Sam Chapman who was a gentleman boarder at her family home in Los Angeles, and Lloyd Royer, a pilot and plane mechanic who she’d known since 1921, when she learned to fly planes in L. A.
Within Amelia’s two California boyfriends, both who proposed marriage to her, a hypothetical perfect husband for her might have been found. She ultimately chose neither. Not only that, in January of 1924 Amelia suddenly made a decision confusing to everybody who felt they knew her well; she moved out of her family home alone to an apartment on the opposite side of Los Angeles, fairly removed from all she had known in L. A. from 1921 to 1923. Sam Chapman didn’t get it. Neither did Lloyd Royer.
Soon, Amelia’s Mother Amy Otis Earhart whose Father had been a famous Kansas Judge, announced she was divorcing her Lawyer husband, Edwin Earhart. And after contacting Amelia’s Sister Muriel about it, Amy also moved to the other side of L. A. to live with Amelia.
Not Long after that, Muriel, younger than Amelia by two years quit her teaching job in Huntington Beach and relocated to Boston, Massachusetts… where her Mother Amy, and Sister Amelia would soon join her. Looking back after Amelia became famous, no one was aware how the reason for all of the sudden abruptness in early 1924, had to do with Amelia’s own secret carrying of Lloyd Royer’s child.
After leaving L. A. in April of 1924, under the cover of a cross country road trip that would take nearly two months and cover seven thousand miles… Amelia Earhart, while with her Mother in Canada, gave birth to a little girl.
Later, no one put two and two together… Amelia had been a proficient budding photographer just before she left Los Angeles… yet not one photo of she and/or her Mother taken during their 1924 road trip… ever made it into any of the many various major books about Amelia’s life. Indeed, nary a verified photograph of Amelia from the year 1924 would ever appear at all, anywhere.
In 1923 Amelia had pre-mentioned a possible return move to the east coast. When she left L. A. in 1924 she’d spoken of her time crunch to re-enroll at her old school, Columbia University in the Fall of 1924. Instead, her Sister Muriel later described how Amelia had a “bone removed” from her nasal passage as soon as she arrived in Boston in the summer of 1924. Then, Amelia spent the next months living and recuperating in Great Neck on Long Island with the well-to-do Stabler family, who were Earhart family friends from before, and included Amelia’s friend, Merian. Amelia did eventually re-enroll at Columbia, but not until February of 1925, and only to drop out before completing any classes.
It was never exactly certain how the issue of Amelia’s child was handled care-wise. It was easily assumed Mother Earhart and Sister Muriel helped to conceal the situation, quite possibly the Stablers too, where by the time Amelia was hired at Denison House in Boston in 1926, mixed in with many other immigrant and orphaned children, supposedly was Amelia’s own non-recognized birth daughter, by then aged two years and walking.
Later, after her surprise offer to fly in the Friendship in 1928 made her instantly famous, George Putnam staged a publicity photo featuring Amelia in her roadster Kissell Car, top down, with a multitude of all aged Denison House kids piled around her. It became a well known photograph. Most notably on the hood of Amelia’s car, sat a four year old little girl who Amelia is shown looking up to as the little girl is turned back to speak to her. Nary a soul ever knew or would have guessed, such a little girl was Amelia’s daughter, who would soon be taken in to be raised in the O‘Crowley family household, and she would further be known as “Irene Jr.”
Amelia had liked her job working with the Denison House children, and the children there adored her too. She was also finally able to start flying again when she could, after having pretty much abandoned it in 1924 and 1925. Soon, after she began flying over the Boston area she started attracting attention to herself. So much so, a few society notables were soon made aware of the flying woman-settlement house worker.
Then in March of 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person ever to fly a plane solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the world was suddenly smaller. For men.
So it seemed it would only be a matter of time before promoters would work up a scheme to transport a woman across by plane as well. Even if only as a passenger at first. Enter George Putnam.
The Interview
George Palmer Putnam, of the famous G. P. Putnam’s Sons publishing family was not the head honcho when he called Amelia. He was on an assignment to help find a replacement for Ms. Amy Phipps Guest, who decided not to become the first woman to fly in a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. Famous explorer Hilton Railey had heard of Amelia’s profession and flying exploits, knew she was single too, so he asked George Putnam to track down the woman known as Amelia Earhart who worked and resided at Denison Settlement House in Boston. And Putnam, who lived in New York, did call Denison House.
Amelia was taken by surprise that day. She knew the Putnam name of course, even knew who George was, so she had no reason to doubt the reality of his offer. She also agreed to be sworn to secrecy on the matter until just before the flight took place. Her co-workers would not know about it, not even her family would know about it. It was also suggested she write a last letter in case the plane for some reason, didn’t make it.
Putnam had mentioned the formality of an interview to Amelia, that would solidify her qualifying as their number one choice, to complete the three person, ‘two men and a woman’ flight team soon to cross the Atlantic. Amelia was thirty years old then. As part of her interview process she was likely asked if she’d ever been married or had children. She would have easily said ‘no’ to both questions. She knew any ’yes’ would have lessoned her chances to participate in the flight. She knew Putnam was looking for a responsible and courageous woman, who sported an untarnished reputation. Amelia wasn’t about to deny his right to her there.
Meanwhile Sam Chapman had earlier moved back to Boston, still trying to court Amelia. She did agree to be engaged to him for awhile, but her sudden fame put an end to that, and the two grew apart.
As for Lloyd Royer, Amelia and Lloyd had gone into business together in 1922, hauling sand a gravel loads to construction sights. Amelia had purchased and owned the truck, Lloyd drove it. Lloyd kept the business going alone for awhile after Amelia left L. A. in 1924, and the two remained in touch letter wise. [She secretly ‘went out with’ Lloyd again after she returned to L. A. in 1935, according to Lloyd’s progeny. And it was true, Amelia did end up getting Lloyd assigned to the Lockheed team that built her Electra.]
So the interview went well for Amelia, and it began a sequence of professional public events that would continuously play out for the next nine years of Amelia’s life. And flying was always her best getaway.
She would meet President Harding, President Hoover, and FDR. She would become a trusted friend of Eleanor Roosevelt’s. She would be revered by Zonta and the Ninety-Nines, and linked romantically at different times to Gene Vidal, Carl Harper, Paul Mantz, and even Prince Edward of Wales.
She tolerated omnipresent George, and surreptitiously monitored her daughter, Irene Jr. who had grown up between the O’Crowley and Stabler households. She waited too long, and anymore it would have proved all but impossible for Amelia to confide in George about Irene Jr. anyway. It became certain, George Putnam never did know about her. Yet by 1937 Irene Jr. was thirteen years old and helping to baby-sit care for little Larry Heller, who at age three had never known his own birth mother. Medical complications from his birth episode had left his mother ill, to soon die as well.
Distancing herself from all of it was actually Amelia’s smartest choice. She had always kept her familial relationship with the O’Crowley’s extremely private, so nary a soul knew she even had a friendship there to maintain. Or of her biological daughter living in their midst.
By 1940 Irene Jr. and little Larry Heller were living in Mineola on Long Island with their Aunt Gert. At her young sixteen years, Irene Jr. had become more of a maternal figure to little Larry than anything else. He never knew his real mother, and Irene Jr. had always been there. As well, Larry’s Father, Al had been working in Buffalo at the Curtis-Wright plane facility, something Amelia had pre-arranged for him before she left. It was also the same year the marriage between Al and Irene was officially annulled. Alvin Heller participated to get it all done.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Amelia Earhart is the Lost Star of the Pleiades
(Note: Please see www.irene-amelia.com as well)
Many Amelia Earhart curious souls are anticipating the 2009 release of Hilary Swank's biopic about Amelia Earhart.
No doubt great interest in the legendary pilot will be reborn at that time. Still, it's doubtful any clear answer about Amelia's true fate will be forthcoming by virtue of Ms. Swank's film effort.
No matter. There's so much great history gathered about Earhart's life since she served as a nurse in Canada during World War One. Yet the enigma she became shrouded it for her future posterity.
Among my favorite metaphor stories about Amelia Earhart is one I call "Amelia Earhart, The Lost Star."
There have been two well known books written about Amelia Earhart called "Lost Star." One was a best seller by Randall Brink, published by W.W. Norton in 1994.
And though it seems easy enough to figure it out on the surface, why is Amelia really viewed as correlative to a 'lost star?' It goes like this:
CHAPTER ONE
The Amelia Earhart 'lost star' correlation dates back to Greek mythology and astronomy. Atlas had seven daughters who were metamorphosed into stars. They became the constellation known as the Pleiades in the night sky; a bright star cluster situated within the larger constellation of Taurus.
All of the seven sister stars have names and six of them glow brightly. But the seventh one in the middle cannot be seen by the naked eye. Her name is 'Electra,' and she is referred to as 'the weeping sister;' weeping because she does not glow like her other sisters and cannot be seen... even though people know she's there. For this reason 'Electra' has oft been referred to as "the lost star of the Pleiades."
Comparatively, the last time Amelia Earhart was seen she was taking off from Lae, New Guinea in a silver twinkling airplane called 'Electra,' named for the same 'weeping sister' star of the Pleiades.
Although history recorded how she became 'lost without a trace' some twenty-odd hours later while still airborne, many claimed strong evidence conveyed how Amelia Earhart still existed on earth afterwards... but she could no longer be seen. This is why Amelia as well, is often referred to tongue-in-cheek wise as "the lost star of aviation." But few recall the old Greek astrological correlation.
Of course Amelia Earhart was among the most courageous women American history ever recorded. Stellar-wise... she was every bit of a mega-star who ended as a supernova.
It's true, during her fame years from 1928 to 1937 Amelia Earhart was nothing less than a world loved heroic superstar. Especially to her own gender, she was regaled as much as Charles Lindbergh had been. But just as Lindbergh's did, the pangs of Amelia's world fame never gave her a moment's rest, were often intrusive, and by 1934 she found herself still smiling for the cameras but constantly running away from them as well.
If one tracks the amount of traveling Amelia did, and the different far apart places she spent time in from mid-1934 until she was reported 'missing' in 1937, the list is staggeringly formidable if not somewhat disturbing. It appears almost too obvious how she was intentionally staying on the move for some reason, cavorting with her country's top political and even some military figureheads, and some of the wealthiest private American citizens during said time period. Yet her reason for doing so didn't appear as simple as the 'death wish' President Hoover was said to believe she had. But in mid 1934, from the time she visited a dude ranch in Wyoming and then relocated to Los Angeles from New York, she was hardly ever idle and she hardly ever rested. It's almost as if some kind of revelation occurred to her in 1934 that cause an incredible shift in the way Amelia started viewing things and more significantly, in the way she started viewing herself. And began living her life on the run. What happened to her, by Job?
In 1927 Charles Lindbergh became the first man on earth to solo a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman on earth to do the same thing. It became hard to argue against the notion, that the two of them as separately viewed in the light of their similar accomplishments, ended as (perhaps) the two most world-wide famous persons of their era.
Lindbergh and Earhart's heroic aviation status back then, was comparable to that of the 1960s NASA astronauts. Except Lindbergh and Earhart were mere private citizens who were not coddled and protected the way NASA cherished its astronauts. And such left their very beings as open targets for the enormous fame status they delivered to themselves. Look what became of Lindbergh's life from the early to late 1930s. It wasn't all that pretty.
But it can be said, where Lindbergh was akin to an Alan Shepherd astronaut figure who was the first American in space, Amelia Earhart ended more like a combination of Gus Grissom and John Glenn astronaut figures. For Gus Grissom's first space flight was deemed a success but it had faltered at the end... just as Amelia's solo Atlantic crossing was viewed. Then, while Amelia was attempting to become the first person ever to pilot a plane around the world at the Equator, (likened in her day to how John Glenn was later the first astronaut to orbit the earth in space) she failed to succeed... and her life was sadly determined to have ended tragically. Sadly Gus Grissom of course, was supposed to have been one of the first Apollo astronauts, but he tragically lost his life in a test capsule fire in 1967, thirty years after Amelia Earhart 'disappeared.'
But enough of the analogous homages. It's clear how starting in 1934, something had suddenly propelled Amelia Earhart's life erratically forward in too many different directions. Again, what happened to her? Why did she change so drastically after she soloed the Atlantic in 1932, then seemingly spent the year of 1933 so happily based in New York... while devoted to the new enterpreneurialism her Atlantic solo flight afforded her? Really, what happened to Amelia Earhart in 1934 that made her change so much?
The answer is more accessible than people think. For the change Amelia endured had to do with a prominent northeast family whose surname was "O'Crowley," and a friend of Amelia's from said family who was known as Irene O'Crowley Craigmile.
END CHAPTER ONE
STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER TWO
Amelia Earhart is the Lost Star of the Pleiades
Many Amelia Earhart curious souls are anticipating the 2009 release of Hilary Swank's biopic about Amelia Earhart.
No doubt great interest in the legendary pilot will be reborn at that time. Still, it's doubtful any clear answer about Amelia's true fate will be forthcoming by virtue of Ms. Swank's film effort.
No matter. There's so much great history gathered about Earhart's life since she served as a nurse in Canada during World War One. Yet the enigma she became shrouded it for her future posterity.
Among my favorite metaphor stories about Amelia Earhart is one I call "Amelia Earhart, The Lost Star."
There have been two well known books written about Amelia Earhart called "Lost Star." One was a best seller by Randall Brink, published by W.W. Norton in 1994.
And though it seems easy enough to figure it out on the surface, why is Amelia really viewed as correlative to a 'lost star?' It goes like this:
CHAPTER ONE
The Amelia Earhart 'lost star' correlation dates back to Greek mythology and astronomy. Atlas had seven daughters who were metamorphosed into stars. They became the constellation known as the Pleiades in the night sky; a bright star cluster situated within the larger constellation of Taurus.
All of the seven sister stars have names and six of them glow brightly. But the seventh one in the middle cannot be seen by the naked eye. Her name is 'Electra,' and she is referred to as 'the weeping sister;' weeping because she does not glow like her other sisters and cannot be seen... even though people know she's there. For this reason 'Electra' has oft been referred to as "the lost star of the Pleiades."
Comparatively, the last time Amelia Earhart was seen she was taking off from Lae, New Guinea in a silver twinkling airplane called 'Electra,' named for the same 'weeping sister' star of the Pleiades.
Although history recorded how she became 'lost without a trace' some twenty-odd hours later while still airborne, many claimed strong evidence conveyed how Amelia Earhart still existed on earth afterwards... but she could no longer be seen. This is why Amelia as well, is often referred to tongue-in-cheek wise as "the lost star of aviation." But few recall the old Greek astrological correlation.
Of course Amelia Earhart was among the most courageous women American history ever recorded. Stellar-wise... she was every bit of a mega-star who ended as a supernova.
It's true, during her fame years from 1928 to 1937 Amelia Earhart was nothing less than a world loved heroic superstar. Especially to her own gender, she was regaled as much as Charles Lindbergh had been. But just as Lindbergh's did, the pangs of Amelia's world fame never gave her a moment's rest, were often intrusive, and by 1934 she found herself still smiling for the cameras but constantly running away from them as well.
If one tracks the amount of traveling Amelia did, and the different far apart places she spent time in from mid-1934 until she was reported 'missing' in 1937, the list is staggeringly formidable if not somewhat disturbing. It appears almost too obvious how she was intentionally staying on the move for some reason, cavorting with her country's top political and even some military figureheads, and some of the wealthiest private American citizens during said time period. Yet her reason for doing so didn't appear as simple as the 'death wish' President Hoover was said to believe she had. But in mid 1934, from the time she visited a dude ranch in Wyoming and then relocated to Los Angeles from New York, she was hardly ever idle and she hardly ever rested. It's almost as if some kind of revelation occurred to her in 1934 that cause an incredible shift in the way Amelia started viewing things and more significantly, in the way she started viewing herself. And began living her life on the run. What happened to her, by Job?
In 1927 Charles Lindbergh became the first man on earth to solo a plane across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman on earth to do the same thing. It became hard to argue against the notion, that the two of them as separately viewed in the light of their similar accomplishments, ended as (perhaps) the two most world-wide famous persons of their era.
Lindbergh and Earhart's heroic aviation status back then, was comparable to that of the 1960s NASA astronauts. Except Lindbergh and Earhart were mere private citizens who were not coddled and protected the way NASA cherished its astronauts. And such left their very beings as open targets for the enormous fame status they delivered to themselves. Look what became of Lindbergh's life from the early to late 1930s. It wasn't all that pretty.
But it can be said, where Lindbergh was akin to an Alan Shepherd astronaut figure who was the first American in space, Amelia Earhart ended more like a combination of Gus Grissom and John Glenn astronaut figures. For Gus Grissom's first space flight was deemed a success but it had faltered at the end... just as Amelia's solo Atlantic crossing was viewed. Then, while Amelia was attempting to become the first person ever to pilot a plane around the world at the Equator, (likened in her day to how John Glenn was later the first astronaut to orbit the earth in space) she failed to succeed... and her life was sadly determined to have ended tragically. Sadly Gus Grissom of course, was supposed to have been one of the first Apollo astronauts, but he tragically lost his life in a test capsule fire in 1967, thirty years after Amelia Earhart 'disappeared.'
But enough of the analogous homages. It's clear how starting in 1934, something had suddenly propelled Amelia Earhart's life erratically forward in too many different directions. Again, what happened to her? Why did she change so drastically after she soloed the Atlantic in 1932, then seemingly spent the year of 1933 so happily based in New York... while devoted to the new enterpreneurialism her Atlantic solo flight afforded her? Really, what happened to Amelia Earhart in 1934 that made her change so much?
The answer is more accessible than people think. For the change Amelia endured had to do with a prominent northeast family whose surname was "O'Crowley," and a friend of Amelia's from said family who was known as Irene O'Crowley Craigmile.
END CHAPTER ONE
STAY TUNED FOR CHAPTER TWO
Amelia Earhart as Electra, the Lost Star of the Pleiades
Coming soon... the story of Amelia Earhart, AKA the 'Lost Star.'
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