Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The shy, scholarly daughter of a banker, Anne Spencer Morrow was born in 1906 and raised in Englewood, New Jersey. She graduated from Smith College with honors and won prizes for her writing.

Anne met Charles Lindbergh in Mexico City, where her father served as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, during the famous aviator’s Latin America tour. They soon began a courtship that included flying lessons, and they married on May 27, 1929. By 1934 Anne was being called the “First Lady of Aviation” and had become an acclaimed writer.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh received the female Harmon Trophy and the Veteran Wireless Operators medal for a wireless communications record of 3,000 miles.

Who was Anne Morrow Lindbergh?

  • She served as Charles Lindbergh's copilot, radio operator, and companion in adventure in the Tingmissartoq.
  • She became an award-winning author and wrote two books about their flights in the Tingmissartoq.
North to the Orient
Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote about their first journey in her book North to the Orient. She described cultural events and lifestyles that few Americans could experience firsthand. At a boat race in Nome, Alaska:

“The three men who were to race squeezed into their kyaks [sic] (a native boat entirely sealskin-covered except where the man sits). Each one then tied the skirt of his parka around the wooden rim of the opening so that no water could enter. Man and boat were one, like Greek centaurs.”

 
The Crew
Anne served as copilot and radio operator on their survey flights. She worked hard to learn aviation skills. So she felt slightly insulted when women reporters seemed more interested in her clothes or where she packed the lunch boxes on the airplane. Her husband referred to her as “the crew,” a term that made her proud.

As the radio operator, Anne often wished she had four hands—two to tune the dials, one to write down the incoming message, and one to hold her pad of paper. She eventually got faster and did not have to go through the “acrobatics,” as she called them. She could listen to Morse code and hear words instead of individual letters.

“I was amused but also inordinately proud to hear about the comment of a Pan American radio operator who, after sending me a one-hundred and fifty word message in code through heavy static, made the astonished remark: ‘My God, she got it!’”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Listen! The Wind