Amelia Earhart

The Rest of the Story
by Martha Rogers

After all her accomplishments, Amelia looked forward to her dream of flying around the world.


She carefully planned the trip with her crew to make sure they had the best route.

Her first attempt began on March 17, 1937, Fred Noonan, Harry Manning and Mantz (who was acting as Earhart's technical advisor) were on board, but they encountered problems which forced them to stop in Hawaii for servicing. An accident on take-off three days later severely damaged the aircraft, so the flight was cancelled.

With the Electra now grounded for repairs, Earhart needed additional funds for a second attempt. With Putnam, she was able to secure the funds and prepared for the next flight. Instead of flying east to west, they reversed their pattern to fly west to east most likely as the result of changes in global wind and weather patterns along the first route.

With repairs competed and funds available, the second flight began in Miami, Florida where she announced her plans to circumnavigate the globe with Fred Noonan as her only crew member. 

Earhart and Noonan

They departed on June 1 and traveled to South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. They arrived at Lae, New Guinea on June 19, 1937 thus completing 22,000 miles of the journey. The last 7000 miles would be over the Pacific.

The last transmission indicated Earhart and Noonan were flying near Howland, but then all transmission was lost. Attempts to make contact with both voice and Morse code failed. One hour after the last transmission, the USCGC Itasca undertook an unsuccessful search. 

Several bearings taken by Pan American Airways stations and the captain of the USS Colorado were sporadic for four or five days and added to the confusion of where the plane could be. Four days after the last verified transmission, the battleship Colorado was ordered to take over search efforts.

Officials abandoned search efforts after a few months, but researchers never stopped looking for clues. G. P. Putman, her husband, was one of those who undertook a search in the Phoenix Group and other islands in the area. Many theories grew from that research and from other observations. The most pre-dominant one being the plane crashed and burned in the ocean. They may have ditched the plane after running out of fuel and crashing, but perished at sea.

Another theory has them captured and imprisoned by the Japanese and later executed. A different version of that theory has the Japanese shooting the plane down over the ocean. The research became enough to convince some of her relatives that the Japanese were somehow involved.

Among other myths and legends that sprang up through the years included Amelia becoming a spy, she landed on an island and assumed a new identity, she and Noonan turned back and crashed somewhere else entirely, and one even suggests she was forced to make propaganda broadcasts with Tokyo Rose.

Men and women have written numerous books about the disappearance, and the show Unsolved Mysteries did a story as well as the National Geographic Channel on its Undiscovered History series. Others have attempted to duplicate the flight in honor of Amelia. The home where she was born is now the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum.

This is one of the museum rooms

More recently, forensic anthropologists believe bones found decades ago may those of Earhart. The journal states that a bone measurement of bones found on Nikumaroro in 1940 may well be those of Earhart. No matter what is proven with the discovery, some aficionados of the mystery of where she may be will continue with their speculations. 

Have you ever heard tales and stories about Amelia Earhart? 

Start your reading for Christmas with Love Blooms at Christmas, a delightful story of a professor at a Bible college and the daughter of a philanthropist whose love blooms as they work together on a children's Christmas play in the early 20th century.

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to four, soon to be five. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive.


Find Martha at: www.marthawrogers.com

www.hhhistory.com

Twitter: @martharogers2 

Facebook: Martha Rogers Author

The Superstition Mountains

by Susan Page Davis

View of the Superstitions from the west side

The Superstition Mountains in southern Arizona offer beautiful views and are a popular hiking and rock climbing destination. Not far from Phoenix, the mountains can be seen for many miles.
 

The mountains got their name because early settlers heard of the many stories and myths told about them by the Apache and Pima Indians in the area. Later, the legend of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine captured the imaginations of many. To read more about the Lost Dutchman’s Mine, see Nancy Farrier’s earlier post on this blog: http://www.hhhistory.com/2013/04/www.nancyjfarrier.com.html .

On the east side of the Superstions, near the trailhead of the Peralto Canyon trail.

The mountains were once known in Spanish as Sierra de la Espuma, mountain range of foam. The most prominent of the range is Superstition Mountain. Other prominent features include Peralta Canyon, Miner’s Needle, Weaver’s Needle, and Flat Iron Peak. Humans have lived in this area for many thousands of years.

Some Apache believe that a hole leading down into the lower world is located in the Superstition Mountains. Winds blowing from the hole are supposed to be the cause of severe dust storms in the Phoenix metropolitan region.

The Pima Indians have a detailed legend about a widespread flood that has similarities to the biblical account of Noah. In this tale, man was created by Cherwit Make, the Great Butterfly, who later became angry because of man’s bad behavior.

Legend of Suha

Suha, a Pima shaman, was warned by the creator, through the voice of the wind, that if people did not change, they would be destroyed by floods. When the people didn’t listen to Suha’s warnings, he and his wife were told to gather spruce gum and make a large, hollow ball. After stocking this structure with water and food, they crawled inside and sealed it.

The flood came, destroying the other people. Suha and his wife eventually landed in their gum ball on Superstition Mountain. Their food was nearly gone, and they were glad to find a prickly pear, or tuna cactus right outside when they opened a hole in the ball. They ate its fruit and waited. When the water subsided, they went down into the valley and created a new civilization.

This view was much like what stagecoach passengers saw in the 1880s.

There is much more to this myth, and you can read about it here.

Another Pima tale tells of Hauk, the “Devil of Superstition Mountain,” who stole one of Suha’s daughters. Suha followed and rescued his daughter, but some people believe the evil spirit still lurks behind Supersition Mountain and will not go there.







Giveaway:  I decided to use the Superstitions as part of the setting for an upcoming book.  If you would like to win a copy of my earlier book set in northern Arizona’s Four Corners area, leave a comment below and include your contact information. Almost Arizona is a historical romance. In it, you will find a sister’s love and her determination to clear her brother’s name when he is accused of murder.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. Her newest books include The Twelve Brides of Christmas and The Outlaw Takes a Bride. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

Where Was Camelot?

Escape into creative worlds of fiction.

St. Michael's Tower on Glastonbury Tor overlooks flatlands. Some believe it was once the Arthurian Isle of Avalon.
Courtesy of Donnylad [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Ah, Camelot! The legendary home of King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table inspires our imaginations today. Whether (and where) it existed remains a hotly contested topic. 

The first mention of Camelot occurred in Chrétien de Troyes' poem "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart," written around 1177, with a passing reference to Arthur coming from Caerleon in Wales, his usual seat, to hold court there. The name, Camelot usurped Caerleon in 13th-century French romances such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, although many details remained the same. It wasn’t until Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Morte d'Arthur,” based on the earlier French romances, appeared in the late 15th-century that Camelot came into its own.

Mallory placed Camelot in Winchester, a Northampton town, and indeed a Round Table hangs in Winchester Castle. Although an interesting artifact, it is not the original. King Henry VIII commissioned this table in 1522 in honor of a state visit of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The table features the names of Arthur’s knights and King Henry, himself, in Arthur’s seat below a Tudor rose.

Winchester Castle Great Hall and Winchester Round Table,
Courtesy of Graham Horn [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Arthurian scholar Ernst Brugger thought that ‘Camelot’ might be a corruption of ‘Camlann,’ the site of Arthur’s final battle against Mordred and a Pictish army. The location of this battle is not known, however theories exist. 

Another Arthurian scholar, Roger Sherman Loomis, thought ‘Camelot’ to be a corruption of ‘Avalon.’ The Isle of Avalon is first mentioned in “Historia Regum Britanniae” (‘The History of the Kings of Britain”) by Geoffrey of Monmouth (circa 1136). Glastonbury became associated with Avalon in 1191 when monks at the abbey claimed to have located the graves of King Arthur and Queen. These remains were moved and lost during the Reformation, and scholars suspect they were not genuine.

Could this be the grave of King Arthur?
Courtesy of Harvey Robinson [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the best claims comes from Cadbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort that was reoccupied and rebuilt by someone who was probably a king of great wealth during the Arthurian era. Read why this location has my vote in Cadbury Castle: Location of Camelot? 

I’ve barely scraped the surface of possible locations for Camelot. The list goes on. In reality, we may never know for certain whether Camelot, or King Arthur himself, actually existed. For most of us, that’s not important. Arthur, Guinevere, the Knights of the Roundd Table, and Camelot live in our imaginations and belong to us all. As Arthurian scholar Norris J. Lacy so aptly put it, "Camelot, located no where in particular, can be anywhere."

About the Author

Escape into creative worlds of fiction with Janalyn Voigt, an author whose unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and fantasy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers.

Beginning with DawnSinger, Janalyn's epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Janalyn is represented by Sarah Joy Freese of Wordserve Literary. Her memberships include ACFW and NCWA. When she's not writing, she loves to discover worlds of adventure in the great outdoors with her family.

The American Cowboy: Truth and Legend

By Amy Lillard

Hardly anything is as iconic as the American cowboy. Even today, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the world who doesn’t acknowledge that the cowboy hat is a symbol of America and the Western world.

There’s just something about a cowboy. He sits tall in the saddle, sometimes facing danger, often times alone. He is one man, brave and true, fighting against nature, injustices, and outlaws. Is it any wonder that he has become a folk hero? A half-real, half-legend icon of the American West.

I live in the land of cowboys. (Lucky me!) It’s nothing to be at a diner and someone come in with spurs jangling, jeans half-tucked into the shafts of their boots, bandana, hat, the works.

But there is more to the cowboy than sometimes meets the eye. And this all-American symbol is actually a mosaic of many ancient cultures as well as the Spanish. Their dress may be easily identifiable, but it is also extremely practical.

Buckaroo is thought to be a variation on the word vaquero (pronounced ba-‘kero) which is a derivative of the Spanish word for cow. So let’s take a look at how the ancient and the Spanish came together to give the world something so uniquely American that it is known the world over.

The Cowboy Hat

In the early days of the Old West it was the bowler hat rather than the slouch hat, center crease, or sombrero that was the most popular among cowboys. Seems strange to think about, but the bowler was less likely to blow off in the wind. By the 1870s, John Batterson Stetson had changed all that. In 1865 he created the very first Stetson hat.

Stampede strings were added to prevent the hat from blowing off when riding

fast. They were long strings typically made from leather or braided horsehair. Usually, the string ran halfway around the crown, then through a hole on each side. The ends were knotted to hold them in place and secured under the chin or around the back of the head to keep the hat in place or from blowing away completely.

Cowboy hats protect the top of the head from the heat of the sun and shade the cowboy’s eyes from the sun's glare. They keep rain off the cowboy’s face. But they have other uses as well. They can be used to wave to a friend, smack a slow horse on the rump and are useful as a cup to scoop up water or folded over for a pillow.

The Bandanna Handkerchief

Though some might believe that the bandanna is just for show, they actually have many practical uses. Bandannas come in a variety of bright colors to make the cowboy more visible in bad weather. They block the hot sun to prevent sunburn and can be used to wipe sweat from the brow. They keep the dust out of the mouth and nose during dust storms and warm the ears in cold weather. They are also used as washcloths, tourniquets, and blindfolds to lead horses out of burning barns.

Cowboy Boots

There is a classic style to the cowboy boot. Heels are best if they are two inches high and angled. They need a tall shaft that reached at least to mid-calf and ‘mule ears’ which are the loops at both sides of the shaft to help a cowboy pull them on. The boots are pull on, traditionally with no laces. A smooth leather sole is best and most cowboy boots are designed with a narrower, rounded toe.

All of these feature serve to help the cowboy work safer and better.

The angled heel and narrow toes are used to help the cowboy ride. The toe and the slick sole give the cowboy easy insertion into the stirrups. While the angled heel help him stay in the saddle by pushing against the stir-ups and holding the foot in place.

There was a high risk of the cowboy

being unseated by his often-times unpredictable horse. When this happened there was a chance that the cowboy’s foot might get caught in the stir-up and he would be dragged. But the smooth shaft of the boot allowed for the foot to slip out and the cowboy to remain on the ground while his horse galloped away.

The shaft also protected the cowboy’s lower leg and ankle from brush and thorns. While dismounted, the shaft helped protect from rocks and rattlesnakes. The high tops also helped prevent the boot from filling with mud and water, during wet weather and creek crossings.

Cowboys could spend as much as a month's salary to have their boots custom made. The only cowboys who wore ready-made boots were either greenhorns or those who saved their money in order to have a new pair made.

The Saddle

The stock saddle’s design traced all the way back to the Moors of North Africa, having come to the American cowboy by way of the Spanish and Mexicans.

Chaps

There are two main types of chaparejos, or chaps: the skintight shotgun chaps and the wide batwing chaps. Different styles developed to fit the local climate, terrain, and hazards. The time of actual appearance of the garment on American cowboys is uncertain. By the late 1870s, however, most Texas cowboys wore them as the cattle industry moved north.

The Lariat

A well-known tool of the American cowboy, a lariat is also referred to as a lasso, riata, or reata (all from Spanish la reata). It’s a loop of rope designed as a restraint. The looped end was tossed around a target and tightened when pulled.

Lassos are not only part of North American culture. Huns are recorded as using lassos in battle to ensnare their adversaries around AD 370. And relief carvings at the ancient Egyptian temple of Pharaoh Seti (built c.1280 BC) show the pharaoh employing a lasso.

General Clothing

The collarless shirt and trousers the cowboys wore were nondescript and made of flannel or wool. A vest was also worn. It added some protection against the cold winds and had a number of useful pockets which were used to store things like tobacco and cigarette papers.

Cowboys often stitched buckskin across the seat and down the inner thighs so the pants would not wear out from rubbing against the saddle all day long.

But even with the practicality of their everyday dress and the borrowed items from so many cultures, the American cowboy is undeniably just that—American. An icon of justice and bravery. How can you not love that?