Amelia Earhart's memory would live forever as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932. She would vanish over the Pacific just five years later in one of aviation's greatest mysteries.
Despite grieving over the loss of her friend and fellow aviatrix, but as if in memory of her, Jackie Cochran set a new speed record for women a little over two weeks later. On July 26, she flew a modernized Beech D-17W "Staggerwing" biplane at a speed of 203.89 miles an hour.
Six months after Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific, two hundred people gathered at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on a cold, gray November day. Two American flags stood mounted at each end of a platform from which the Women's National Aeronautical Association paid tribute to the great aviatrix. The main speaker, Jacqueline Cochran, spoke these words: "If her last flight was into eternity, one can mourn her loss but not regret her effort. Amelia did not lose, for her last flight was endless. Like in a relay race of progress she had merely placed the torch in the hands of others to carry on to the next goal, and from there on and on forever."
To Barbara, who was unable to attend the memorial because she was about to reopen her airport, Amelia Earhart and Jacqueline Cochran symbolized all she hoped to achieve, if only her airport would be a success again. Because the torch that Amelia Earhart had lit was now being passed to other women pilots like herself, Barbara vowed she would work to make her airport an even greater success than before.
And if Ken Knowland sent her six dozen red roses, she would throw them in the trash cans where Moose had dumped Chet Armstrong. Where they both belonged.
Men! she told herself. Who needs them?
Then, after only a moment's thought...
God help us! We do!
And God help me! I do!