East to the Dawn by Susan Butler Page B

Amelia had considerable musical talent, and at some point they had acquired a piano, which both enjoyed playing. Now the Earharts could afford season subscriptions to the concert series sponsored by the Drake Conservatory of Music, which regularly attracted such luminaries as Fritz Kreisler, Madame Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and Alma Gluck. The concerts, held in the evening, were a big family event. Amelia and Muriel in the wintertime went dressed up in high-necked silk party dresses and gaiters, and in summertime in white dotted Swiss with pink or blue sashes and shoes that had to be buttoned with a button hook. Amy wore formal silk dresses with a “sweep” of skirt, long white kid gloves that were buttoned with a silver glove hook, a sealskin coat, and her grandmother Maria Harres’s round fur muff. Edwin too got all dressed up for the concerts; he wore a white shirt with a stiff white collar, Prince Albert coat, and gray pants. Amelia had developed quite sophisticated tastes in music—she liked the German composers, particularly Wagner, and “certain” of the Italian operas (although sometimes she was put off because the words were “so silly”). Now, after the concerts, she and Edwin would sit at the piano, playing by ear what they had heard.
    It was a time of pleasant social contacts, and living so near Drake,
many of their new friends were associated with the university. The Earharts were included in a group of seven neighborhood families that pooled magazine subscriptions, so their horizons broadened as they kept up with the world and their neighbors reading Scribner’s, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Century. Amy took Amelia and Muriel to art exhibits at the college. With it all, Amelia kept up with happenings in Atchison through her correspendence with Virginia Park and Lucy and Katch, all of whom came for visits.
    And then suddenly the wonderful, protected world of childhood that had enwrapped Amelia and Muriel like a cocoon was gone. Edwin changed—and the change broke their world apart.
    Edwin had never had the discipline to see the world as it was, only as he wanted it to be. Now, so close to real success, he still could not. His spendthrift carelessness had simply moved to a higher level. He had the tastelessness to give Amy an expensive set of Kipling’s works, upon which he had paid only the first installment—expecting her, as she found out only later, to pay for the subsequent installments, which were considerable. Amy tried to make light of it to Amelia and Muriel, who inevitably found out. Eventually Amy forgave Edwin, as she always forgave him no matter what he did.
    But in 1911, their last summer at the lake, things started to go seriously wrong between Edwin and Amy. Undoubtedly for Edwin it had been building for a long time, but because he spent so much time traveling, the extent of his unhappy relationship with Amy didn’t show. What was becoming evident was that he was drinking heavily. He decided the time had come to leave Amy. He gathered his belongings and left for good.
    Muriel, eleven, never even realized what had happened. Amy could easily explain his absence as another long business trip—a not-unusual occurrence, in fact the norm for Edwin. Amelia undoubtedly knew—being fourteen at the time, it would have been exceedingly hard for Amy to have fooled her, particularly since Amelia was such an aware child and Amy was so devastated. She “wrote him the most hysterical appeals to return,” according to her brother Mark, to whom Edwin sent one of her letters, probably because he was worried about Amy and wanted Mark to make sure she was all right. Totally distraught, Amy told her parents.
    Finally Edwin changed his mind and returned—undoubtedly under duress—but when he did, he was still drinking heavily. It unnerved Amy, and inevitably, she again confided in her parents.
    Now the Otises’ worst nightmares had come