Locked Rooms Open Doors: Diaries And Letters Of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1933-1935

Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

A moving volume that reveals how the Lindberghs increasingly found themselves in the spotlight-a bittersweet record of achievements and hardships. Introduction by the Author; Index; photographs. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Genres: Biography, Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Diary, American, Biography Memoir

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Anne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906. She married Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and became a noted aviator in her own right, eventually publishing several books on the subject and receiving several aviation awards. Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, earned her international acclaim. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. War Within and Without, the penultimate installment of her published diaries, received the Christopher Award in 1980. Mrs. Lindbergh died in 2001 at the age of ninety-four.

Not to be confused with her daughter Anne Lindbergh.

Reviews

[MKO · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anne is my friend. If she was alive, I would probably write to her. Stalk her. Try to visit her.

MKO: I was born in the wrong time period. I was meant to be Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s best friend.
LAL: You’d better give me something to read then.
MKO: Bring Me a Unicorn will be delivered early tomorrow.

“Excited by The Waves…I hate those labored in-between descriptive passages of the sun’s rays and birds cheeping, etc. When I see those italics coming at me I rage.” I was transported back inside The Waves…hating those italic portions too! But she put perfect words to that particular reading dread. And I don’t feel like such a dummy now.

Another proof that we are friends: “I have been reading Hakluyt’s voyages…about Frobisher and the Northwest Passage. They are thrilling…'What navigation is there voyde of perill?'” I just post-ited that…where? See? We could be friends. Was I born at the wrong time? Or have I just not met the right people?

“…there’s something wicked about reading a novel in the morning…” (I almost never read a novel in the morning.)

[Jeslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Volume three of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's diaries and letters is definitely darker and deals with the relentless media frenzy surrounding the Lindberghs, whether at home or visiting throughout the world on their aviation journeys. Anne writes poignantly of the struggle to build her young family in peace, and the difficulties she weathers in her relationships with her mother and siblings as she evolves as a wife, mother, and woman.

A couple standout passages, vintage AML:

"I thought, too, as I held my breath for landing, how much faith I needed in life - everybody needs, women especially - an absolute, childlike and perfect faith, that we have laughed at in my generation. The kind of faith that is best illustrated in the Bible, a faith like Gideon's marching round the walls. In spite of our modern attitude to religion, there are lessons in the Bible better taught there than anywhere, truths that are not found anywhere else but in that symbolism, and now - for me - Faith."

"C. teaching Jon to climb up the steep rock cliff - not touching him, not helping him, but standing behind him (what a father should do). Jon slips on some loose rocks. C. catches him, but not before Jon has been bruised a little and frightened. 'You help me,' shakes out Jon. 'No, I'm not going to help you - I'm going to stand here so you don't fall.' Jon's legs shake so hard he can hardly stand. C.: 'Now just stand still and decide what is the best thing to do.' Jon's legs stop trembling, confidence coming back with C.'s firm tone (as it does always to me). 'The best thing to do is to go down!' But C. helps him up by telling him where to step. I feel that lesson of keeping calm in danger may help Jon eternally. I hope so that he grows up like C."

Often lyrical, always human, motivates me to take better care of my own life, whether in how I interact with others or how I secure "downtime" for refueling.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look at Charles Lindbergh's wife through her letters and diaries. This was the period just after the kidnapping and murder of their first child and the incredible publicity.

[June G · Rating 5 out of 5]

More of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Diaries and Letters. I read in quiet amazement.

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third volume of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's diaries and letters begins early in 1933. Anne is still reeling from the brutal kidnapping and murder of her firstborn son, while raising her second son, and also mourning the loss of her father and her older sister's grim diagnosis. Despite a slow start things pick up fairly quickly and we follow Anne and Charles as the travel around the Atlantic, from Greeland, to Iceland, to Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, France, the UK, Africa and so many more places. She sets a record for longest radio transmission during their five month trip, but she is also torn wanting to be home with her boy. Upon returning home, she faces a battle between her mother and husband. Since the kidnapping the Lindberghs didn't have a home of their own and lived with Anne's mother which caused them to clash often. But the bickering comes to a shattering end with the death of Anne's beloved sister Elisabeth and not long after the trial of the man who kidnapped and murdered her son. The trial isn't mentioned too much, only in passing and when her mother testified in court. Then the book slows a bit, more battles between in laws, a trip to Charles's hometown, and finally their decision to escape to Europe in the hopes of finding freedom from the constant publicity that stalker them. Overall another solid entry in the series. Considering the uptick in mental health issues lately, Anne's own struggles with anxiety, depression and insecurity are poignant and very relatable to today's world, despite having been written over 85 years ago.

[Barb Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written and an insightful look into Annes' life as a mother , wife and navigator.
I learned alot about how Charles and Anne navigated the flight patterns for the airlines.
Also the Lindberghs were often put into the public eye and were not always comfortable in that situation. Anne was a bit shy and unsure of herself worth. But truly Anne and Charles had a deep love and bond.

[Nancy Effrig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her writings are intimate, introspective and poetic,the excitement and challenges of being Charles Lindbergh' wife as and she navigates with him aviation routes, and the agony and heartbreak of so much loss, to her son and her sister, her father in the backdrop of the early thirties in the 20th century.

[Lexie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book is mostly a documentation of a long flight Charles and Anne took... not very engaging, it felt like a simple log of the trip. But the second half of the book was a lot more diary entries and letters with poetic ponderings and wisdom. I really love and prefer the pondering Anne Lindbergh over the aviator Anne Lindbergh.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. The only problem is that if you know very little about Anne Morrow Lindbergh her writings about various people are hard to understand. Some kind of guide to these people would have been helpful.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to turn in
August 1, 1999
January 19, 2005

[Erica]

I'm not usually interested in auto-biographies but this book found me at a used book sale, and I have become enrapt in this book and the history of the Lindbergh family

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne Lindbergh kept diaries of her and her husbands adventures of traveling by plane. Charles became a great patriot and inventor of travel through flight. He had much knowledge to pass on to the military when it came to flying in all types of weather and conditions, topography and how to handle the landing of the planes.
Anne's stories are truly amazing of all the people they met during their travels around the world. The scenery and beauty of nature she took in. The very scary times and the types of conditions she had to adjust daily to, based on the weather.
This period of her diaries was shortly after her firstborn son had been kidnapped and than later found murdered.
I really enjoyed all the History that was mingled in with her daily diary writings.

[Adrien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I simultaneously want to read them all in one gulp and to spread them out and make them last. Absolutely lovely.

[Shelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always enjoyer thoughts. Too bad we don’t write letters anymore

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne travels to Greenland, northern Europe, western Africa, and Brazil, working alongside Charles as the radio operator to his pilot, charting routes across the Atlantic Ocean for T.W.A. After their return home, they live at Next Day Hill at the Morrow estate in New Jersey, vacationing often in Maine. Off the page, the Lindberghs continue to be heavily pursued by the press, so much so that by the end of this volume Charles has determined to move his family to England or France for what he sees as greater security.

Anne is still deeply in love with Charles and in this volume, she capably juggles marriage, motherhood, and vocation, looking to him as partner and mentor, the one in the world she most hopes to please. In some ways, despite the tragedy of Charles Junior's kidnapping and death in Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, she is very romantic, a girl reveling in a busy life that appears like a fantasy of wealth, travel, and fulfillment to the reader. The first time I read this, in my twenties, I envied Anne for the excitement of her marriage and the material it gave her to begin to write for publication. Now I read it and agree with Harold Nicolson, who advises her to go deeper into herself. She doesn't do this much until the death of her sister Elizabeth. Then I feel Anne reaching deeply in her writing, her words attaining a level of universality that we otherwise don't feel from her.

I think Anne loved Greenland the best of the nations she visited in the first half of the book. They spent the longest period of time there and she does not find fault with it. I loved her descriptions of musk ox, missionaries, Inuits, and the ship's crew that served as back-up for the two. I am very curious now and would love to visit there, knowing that their trip was almost one hundred years ago.

[LuAnn · Rating 4 out of 5]

If only I could write as articulately as AML about my exterior as well as interior life. She is such a pioneer in aviation, helping to map the first commercial routes with CAL and being the first female to obtain a sailplane (glider) pilot license, among the achievements no one who knew her as a shy, bookish businessman and ambassador’s daughter would have predicted. The entries about the mapping flights are drier than the more quotidian and personal ones but serve a realistic look at the discomforts and adventures of early aviation. I relate to her need to write and reflect and am impressed my her wisdom.

She’s clearly restrained in what she published about her OCPD husband and about the constant harassment by the press and public. What she endured as his partner in family, flight and fame would do in many. I greatly admire her and wish her journals were as widely valued as they once were. I often see them at library sales or free book giveaways. I look forward to seeing how she grows throughout the three remaining volumes of her journals and letters.