Amelia Earhart.

Today in the news was a story about Amelia Earhart. I started thinking about that, so of course, I had to tell you a story.
When I was in fifth grade, I had dreams of being a writer. Heck, my whole life I have dreamed of being a writer. We were going to have to do a report on someone famous. You got extra points if you knew that person. I went home and asked my Mom if she knew anyone famous. She didn't. Then I asked if we had anyone famous in our family that she knew of, she thought for a moment and then said, " Nope, sorry, no one famous that she could think of."
Then as she thought a minute she said, " Your Aunt Kay was related to Amelia Earhart." In Fifth grade I had no idea who that was, and my Mom who wouldn't spell words for you if you couldn't spell it made you look it up in the dictionary. She also told me I had to go look in the Encyclopedia to find out just who Amelia Earhart was and why she was famous.

I came back into the kitchen so excited because of it and it really did make me wonder about where she went and was she still alive. She told me to call my aunt. I got out my note book and my pencil and called my aunt on the phone. She told me that she didn't know much about her but her grandmother was her cousin and I needed to ask her.
I got off the phone and told my Mom and my Mom always eager for me to get out of my shy ways took matters in her own hands and called my Aunt's Mom. She set up a meeting for me to go out there and speak to my Aunt's Grandmother. For the life of me I can't remember her name, because the few times I had met her she was just Grandmother.

The Dixon's lived what I thought was a long way from us. In a very different part of town. Not really town, a small farming community. My Aunt's Grandmother lived in a tiny stone house. I always thought it looked like fairy's or gnomes might live there. We went inside and she was in bed. She was older than even my great grandmother. She was a tiny little lady, not much bigger than me.
I pulled up a chair and sat down beside her and like a  reporter I had seen on T.V. I got ready to ask her questions. I asked her how was she related to Amelia Earhart, and she told me that they were cousins and that she always made her mad. Her little dark eyes just flashed when she said that. It was the first time I realized that older people, were the same as me in the inside.
She said, " Yes, she was always watching those airplanes and she never did her work. We always had to do it for her. She just hung around those people that flew those airplanes. I always knew she would come to no good." She talked about what they did as children and how they lived and how mad her grandmother would be at Amelia. Then she talked about moving to California and then that was it, she was tired and started drifting to sleep.

I got up and took my notes and went home and gathered what information I could and wrote my report. The teacher called me up to his desk after he read my report and questioned me about it. I don't know if he believed me but he sure asked me lots of questions. So today as I was reading that newspaper article I was thinking about that one and only interview I ever did. I am glad I sat there in that stone house and collected memories. Sometimes we forget that famous people have families and even though history likes to change things the people were really just people after all.

It was on my mind today. I just thought I would share that tiny bit of history. History that passes on into time.

~Kim~