When I was in elementary school in Hilo, front page news touted new methods of travel by announcing Charles Lindberg’s solo flight over the Atlantic Ocean and Amelia Earhart followed him with hers. Because of the talents and bravery she became my idol. I decided that I, too, would become a pilot in my adulthood.
I followed her travels and when she came to visit Hilo, I had to see her. She planted a tree on Banyan Drive where famous people recorded their visits to Hilo. Dad found her departure time in the Hilo Tribune-Herald and took me to the airport. Many school friends were there to get her autograph. Being very tall for my age, I stood at the end of a very long line watching my friends, one by one, as they adoringly had her sign their scraps of paper.
Before my turn arrived, someone gave her a large bouquet of red roses.
Inwardly I thought, “Why would someone choose red roses in Hawaii when we have so many beautiful orchids and other flowers growing here?”
Standing next to her waiting for my autograph, she handed me the bouquet of red roses and said, “Here, hold these for me.” She handed me the roses and signed my paper. Then her husband, George Putman, called out saying,“Wait!” and grabbed his camera and took a picture of me standing with Miss Earhart.
“What is your name?” Mr. Putman asked me.
“Patsy Lindgren,” I replied.
“How do you spell that?” he responded.
Well, throughout the years, people always left the “d” out of my last name.
Naturally, I said, “L – i – n – d – g – r – e – n ” accenting the “d.
And George Putman boarded their small plane with Amelia Earhart saying over and over again to himself, “L – i – n – d – g – r – e – n.”
We were told that the photo of Miss Earhart with me standing next to her was published in a Honolulu newspaper. We never saw it. Since then we have searched the newspaper archives and never found it among the hundreds, perhaps a thousand, Amelia Earhart photos.
Skipping ahead into WWII, when I was attending college in Illinois, my roommate’s father was stationed at the Army’s airfield in Salina, Kansas, with George Putman. When she went home during our Christmas vacation, I suggested to Kay that she might ask George Putman if he remembered his Hilo visit when he departed on their plane after taking a picture of me with Miss Earhart repeating “L – i – n – d – g – r- e – n” over and over again. Kay told me that he did remember the incident. What else could he say to a young college student?
Pat Lindgren Kurtz resides in Kailua-Kona. She has been a watercolor artist, art teacher at community colleges and overseas, and published author now writing her memoir, “Sugar and Poi.”