Anne Morrow Lindbergh Dies At 94

When Charles Lindbergh set his 1930 transcontinental speed record, Anne Morrow Lindbergh was in the cockpit, seven months pregnant but running the plane's radio and gathering weather information.

Two years later, the couple was thrust back into the world spotlight when that child was kidnapped from their New Jersey home and killed.

Lindbergh, who was also the author of 13 books, died at her daughter's home in rural Vermont Wednesday, family members said. She was 94.

“Mother died quietly in her second home in Vermont with her family around her,” Reeve Lindbergh, the couple's youngest child, said in a statement issued by the Lindbergh Foundation.

There were no plans for a public memorial service at this time, according to the statement released by the Minneapolis-based foundation.

Her late husband captured the world's imagination when he flew the “Spirit of St. Lewis” from New York to Paris in 1927, becoming the first man to fly across the Atlantic, but Anne Lindbergh was an aviator in her own right.

The millionaire heiress became the first U.S. woman to get a glider pilot's license in 1930, just a year after marrying "Lucky Lindy” as Lindbergh was known.

Two years later tragedy struck the couple. A kidnapper climbed into their home in central New Jersey and took their 20-month-old son Charles III, leaving a ransom note behind.

Anne was pregnant with their second child at the time. In what became known as the “crime of the century,” the couple paid the ransom but their baby's body was found several months later in nearby woods.

In 1935, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the crime. He was put to death in the electric chair in 1936.

In 1934 Anne Lindbergh became the first woman to be awarded the Hubbard Gold Medal by the National Geographic Society for distinction in exploration, research and discovery.

Numerous other awards followed from the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women's Hall of Fame and the Women in Aerospace society.

A graduate of Smith College where she received two literary awards, Anne Lindbergh went on to write 13 books. Her most popular perhaps was “The Gift from the Sea”, a book that deals with the issues of love, marriage, youth and aging.

Born in Englewood, N.J. in 1906, she was the daughter of businessman, ambassador and U.S. Senator Dwight Morrow and the poet and women's education advocate Elizabeth Cutter Morrow. Growing up, she spent her summers on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and on an island off the coast of Maine.

In addition to Charles III, the couple had five other children: Jon, Land, Anne, Scott and Reeve. Anne died in 1993.

The Foundation that bears the couple's name was started by their friends, World War II fighter pilot Jimmy Doolittle and Astronaut Neil Armstrong, some 24 years ago after Charles Lindbergh's deth.

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