In the winter of 1931, six years before her disappearance over the Pacific, the aviator and explorer Amelia Earhart married publisher and publicist George Putnam in the home of Putnam's mother in Noank, Connecticut. She was a less than enthusiastic bride.
It would appear her reluctance was not directed at her soon to be husband, but at the institution of marriage itself and what she thought it might mean for their separate lives. Given her life story, it is easy to understand Earhart as someone who would have cherished individual freedom and a life free of conventional restraints.
Noank is a small fishing village on Long Island Sound. It is so small that it is very easy to pass it by. There are only two roads off Route One in Groton that would lead you south into the village. Once there, you can easily walk from one hilly end to the other in less than an hour, passing a firehouse, several marinas, an old train station, churches, a village museum, two well-known lobster places, and many quaint old homes of varying size, shape and vernacular.
Just before Earhart agreed to marry Putnam, she sent him a letter that has become a matter of public record. It was addressed; "Dear GPP", for George P. Putnam and read in part:
"There are some things that should be writ before we are married - things we have talked over before - most of them."
"You should know of my reluctance to marry, my feeling that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could do..."
"Please let us not interfere with the others' work or play, nor let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage."
"I must exact a cruel promise and that is you will let me go in a year if we do not find happiness together."
"I will try to do my best in every way and give you that part of me you know and seem to want."
A. E.
It must have worked, because Putnam and Earhart remained husband and wife for the next six years until her disappearance in 1937.
Earhart was last heard from on July 2, 1937. She was having difficulty locating her target destination; Howland Island in the Pacific. The search for her plane was called off two weeks later. To this day there are people devoted to learning what happened to her, her navigator, and their plane, but the truth seems lost to time.
It can be said that Putnam lived up to the promise he made by accepting Earhart's pre-marital letter. She was free to pursue her work and her aspirations. In her case, they were what meant most.
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© Dean Pagani 2023