Pages of My Mind

Picture courtesy of Disney (of course)

Today is a much better day for us. We still have a job, things will change but we can handle that. My husband told our boss that we would take a pay cut to help the company out. They were shocked because (we found out) that our rates are lower then any of the other engineers and none of them offered to do that. Go figure.

We received our yearly Christmas card from my oldest friend. She has retired from her teaching job at a deaf and blind school in California. Her days are spent taking care of her grandchild for 3 days a week.

So, my mind went down memory lane, she was 1 and I was 3 when we met. We grew up together, she taught me how to swim, I introduced her to her husband. We were at each other's weddings. I was there when she gave birth to her first child. Her children, I adored and spoiled with a passion and watched them grow into handsome young men and marry. Now they are having children of their own.

I can look back and say we had very good times and our lives are better for it.

Queenie

Picture courtesy of PPLD

I would like to introduce you to Mary Lincoln Mellen Palmer better known as Queenie. She was Colorado Springs first school teacher.

Queenie came from a modest family, her father was a lawyer/coal miner/chauffeur. 1871 was a big year for her, she turned 21, married General William Jackson Palmer, gave birth to her first child and she and her husband founded the city Colorado Springs. The above picture was taken in 1871 a few days after her marriage.

Queenie stood shoulder to shoulder with her husband building the city of Colorado Springs. She took all the children and taught them no matter what race. She became a hero to the children and their parents. One woman she befriended, named her last girl child after Queenie. This woman was a Cheyenne Indian married to a white man. To Queenie, she was just another person making a life in the wild west, there was no racism in her heart.

Her heart was bigger then life and she was very much in love with her older husband. William Palmer was a good man and loved his wife. They built a beautiful home together here in the Springs, it is called Glen Eyrie. It's a wonderful castle.

By the year 1881, Queenie had two daughters Elsie 10 years old and Dorothy 1 year, with another child on the way. She packed her bags and moved to England. Colorado history books say she had heart problems and needed to live in a lower altitude.

Margery Palmer, Queenie's last child, was born in England. William loved Queenie and could not bear to be without her. In the early 1890's he went to England, he stayed so long his visa expired. In 1894, a member of his family died in the states, he applied for a emergency visa to return to America. His daughter Elsie, now in her 20's, went with him.

It was after this he told Queenie and his daughters things would be differant. I can find no record of Queenie returning but his daughters did. They found out things were not differant, only this time he had tied up the money so they could not leave. In 1906 fate made a call. While horseback riding on his land, William's horse threw him. The accident left him paralyzed for life, he ordered the horse shot. Many years later, his daughter Dorothy said "they should have shot him instead of the horse."

In March 1909 William Palmer passed away, Queenie followed in 1910. Their final resting place is here in Colorado Springs, the city they started.

I edited this story in April 2010 because some of the things that Dorothy had told me as a child were somewhat jaded. She did not have a good realtionship with her father but her father was a good man. He also had a gift of coming to an area and seeing what that area would become. He told his daughters things would be differant if they came back to the Springs, what he didn't know was that the men he was in business with were becoming more greedy and his money would be tied up.

Palmer was a good man that loved his wife above all and she loved him.

Amelia Earhart Part Two

I have read the rest of the classified file on Amelia, there are a lot of duplicate and triplicate pages. So, here is the bare bone facts, our government stood along side Japan and said she was not on Saipan Island.

The facts: pieces of her plane were found near this island, when the U.S. took this island during WWII, a japanese soldier had a picture of Amelia in front of a Japanese plane, a picture of Amelia with a Japanese officer was found inside a house on the island. Mr. Devine, who was with the military, was told of two people, a man and a woman, falling out of the sky by residents of the island. Mr. Devine was shown two unmarked graves in the cemetary on the island where these two people were buried (this was in 1944-45).

It is also a fact that Amelia was on a secert mission at the time of her disapperance. What the facts say is Amelia and her navigator were taken prisoners by the Japanese and most likely excuted.

So, there you have it. I don't think that they are still in those graves, I am sure the government has been there and made sure to remove all evidence of her ever being on that island, but I could be wrong.

Amelia Earhart, Classified Files

I was doing some research on Ancestary.com on another matter when a pop up came up saying they had the classified files on Amelia Earhart. Of course I stopped what I was doing and followed the link. It has 73 pages, I copied the first three, hoping all of you could read them but it doesn't seem like they came out big enough to read. Plus they came out backwards, the first page you see is page 3, page 3 is page 1 and so forth.

So, I've condensed the first three pages into this: In 1960 two Air Force officers turned in evidence that Amelia Earhart had been excuted by the Japanese on Saipan Island (it does not say what the evidence is). After investigating the government said Amelia was never on Saipan.

Then a Mr. Devine said he saw Amelia's grave when he was on Saipan in 1944-45. Because of this the Navy was asked to investigate.

That's it for the first three pages, so I'll digest the rest and do another blog on it. But it does not look good for our Amelia.