Herald and news., January 31, 1960, Page 30, Image 30

Family Weekly
January 31, 1960
The Lindbergh of today is
able to lead a normal if
lonely life, unrecognized by
the once-adoring public.
AT scott's cove, in a section of Darien, Conn., just
i off Long Island Sound, a large rambling house
built in modified Tudor style is hidden from passers-by
by tall trees. Three acres behind it, which
have been permitted to grow wildly, intensify the
sense of isolation.
To this ordinary suburb, the family which has
lived in this house since 1946 seems a mystery.
The children all have gone to public schools and
mingle freely in the community. But neither the
husband nor wife takes part in the Darien social
or community life. The man of the house greets
nobody, and the wife, though pleasant to every
body, is pleasant in a distant, shy way. Says one
neighbor: "She seems to tiptoe rather than to walk."
Neighbors note, too, that the family has an un
listed telephone number and that their children,
when questioned, don't seem to know what work
their father does. And, while Darien shopkeepers
talk of visits to their stores by such local celebri
ties as film star Madeleine Carroll and Lt. Gen.
Leslie Groves, they do not talk of the residents of
this house.
But celebrities they are. Perhaps more than any
other couple, they have been adored and idolized
by the public and, at the same time, vilified and
harassed. For they are Charles A. Lindbergh and
Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
He is the same Charles A. Lindbergh who, on a
rain-soaked morning in 1927, took off from Roose
velt Field, N. Y., to make history's first nonstop
solo transoceanic flight.
"Why this isolation?" the neighbors ask. The
answer lies both in Charles and Anne Lindbergh's
own natures and in the circumstances of their
lives. Even as a high-school lad irf Little Falls,
Minn., Charles was regarded as a boy apart one
who was more interested in mechanical things and
in courting danger than in human beings. And Anne
4 Family Weekly, January 31, I960
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF
Idolized, then harassed and scorned, this famous flier
Lindbergh's classmates at Smith College remember
her as "a shy girl of most unusual charm."
The famous flight that made him a public hero
only deepened Charles' wish to be alone. His mar
riage, in the spring of 1929, to Anne Morrow, daugh
ter of Dwight D. Morrow, then ambassador to
Mexico, was an ordeal by publicity. As the young
couple honeymooned in a boat, they were pursued
by newsmen and cameramen who followed in
launches and by airplane. At one time, their small
craft was rocked for seven hours by the wash of
a photographer's circling speedboat.
The couple sought many retreats. First, there was
a home in Hopewell, a remote mountainous part
of New Jersey where, instead of finding peace, they
met tragedy. A hostile outside world, in the per
son of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, intruded and
kidnaped their first-born son on March 1, 1932.
For nine terrible weeks, the couple lived alternately
in hope and despair, only to learn that Charles, Jr.,
had been murdered.
Next was a retreat to Long Barn in Kent, Eng
land, a 14th-century home where the couple fled
with Jon, their second son, born only a few months
after the kidnaping.
Later the Lindberghs' separateness became even
deeper when, at the request of the U. S. military
attache in Berlin, Lindbergh visited prewar Ger
many. He toured German air centers, accepted a
medal from Nazi air chief Goring, and made state
ments interpreted at home as pro-Nazi.
Returning to the United States, the Lindberghs
met with a cool welcome. Nearly all their former
friends held aloof from them.
Since that time, Lt. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer
has made public the fact that Lindbergh had secured
valuable information for the U. S. during his un
popular German visit and, though he opposed U. S.
- - WMM
entry into the war, made a significant contribu
tion in combat flying and as a consultant to aircraft
manufacturers. Because he served his country,
yet was treated by friends as a traitor, Lindbergh
retreated even further within himself than before.
And his wife retreated with him.
At Darien, however, where the Lindberghs have
lived for 13 years, they have found a source of
solace and strength. Old wounds have healed, and
their five children Jon, 27, Land, 22, Anne, 19.
Scott, 17, and Reeve, 14 have matured.
This retreat is different from previous ones. For
one thing, the fame that plagued them has receded.
A measure of its ebb is the fact that in 1957 a movie
of Lindbergh's flight, "The Spirit of St. Louis," was
a box-office failure. In 1959, too, the eclipse of his
fame was clear when "The Hero," a biography of
him, fell short of the best-seller lists.
As fame has receded, the Lindberghs have lifted
the ban they once had on visiting. Special friends
come to dinner. And they, in turn, visit special
friends. But among Darien people, the visitors are
few. The postmaster seems to be the Lindberghs'
only local dinner guest. He has become a friend
because he is protector of the Lindberghs' isola
tion. Together, in the postmaster's office, the two
men regularly return 98 percent of the mail ad
dressed to Lindbergh without opening it. i
From his Darien home, Lindbergh, who will be
58 next-Thursday, sets out many mornings like
any other commuting husband and father for tho;
nearby railroad station. He is a consultant to fan
American Airways, a general in the U. S. Army,(
and currently is engaged in a top-secret project.
Though balding and gray, he looks a good 10 j
years younger than he is. There are few lines on '
his face. His distance vision is still acute, and hisl
175 pounds are well distributed as hard, lean mus-
The Lindbergh residence in Darien,
Connecticut (left). Here, Anne and
Charles have reared their five chil
dren to be highly self-reliant individ
uals. Jon (above) is their oldest and
has the most independent spirit of
all. The young Lindberghs (right) be
gan married life in 1929, just 2 years
after Charles' historic flight. It was
the beginning of a struggle for pri
vacy that culminated in tragedy.
THE LINDBERGHS By FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER
led his family into seclusion years ago; here is a glimpse of how they live today
cle over a tall, erect frame. On the train as in
town he speaks to nobody. And nobody pays any
attention to him.
From the Darien house, the two youngest Lind
bergh children also leave for school each weekday
morning. Reeve, a light-haired and fair-skinned
girl (all the Lindbergh children are fair-complex-ioned),
takes the school bus for Darien Junior High
School where she is a ninth-grade student, makes
excellent grades, and is president of the student
council. Scott heads for Darien High School where
he is a senior and manages the basketball team.
Her husband and children gone, Anne Lindbergh,
now 53, is left at home like any other housewife,
to supervise the household with its two servants.
She sometimes drives into town for marketing.
When she does, she greets people. Or, if the occa
sion demands, she will visit the children's schools
for a play or a parent-teacher conference. But as
one principal put it, "She seems only to be doing
her minimal parental duty in a shy way."
Shy to the world, Anne and Charles Lindbergh
are open and giving to each other. The farther they
have retreated from others, the closer they have
become to each other. "Their marriage," says a
friend, "remains today, after all the tragedy and
troubles, as happy and inspiring a relationship as
I have ever seen."
Theirs is a modern marriage, with the wife a
fully equal partner. Anne Lindbergh has flown
with her husband on survey flights and has been
his partner in aerial explorations. She has quali
fied for a first-class glider pilot's license. She did
her husband's camera work and became navigator,
radio operator, and copilot on his long flights.
Yet she has played the woman's role, too. Before
they were married, he told her that he wanted a
large family, a dozen children or so. Laughingly,
she agreed. She thought that children would soften
li n
Colonel Lindbergh enters the court for the 1935 trial of
Hauptmann, the man who kidnaped and murdered his first-born
him and make a dent in the armor with which he
shielded himself. The winter before their baby was
kidnaped, she thought she saw a thawing in her
husband. It had been a winter of great happiness
for them. But with spring came the tragedy and
an end to the thaw.
Tragedy, however, also gave Lindbergh new
dimensions of thought and feeling. Slowly he moved
toward sharing his wife's attitude of philosophical
brooding. As a youth, his thoughts had revolved
around planes and engines. He himself has said,
"Science was more important to me than either God
or man." But the companionship of Anne, personal
tragedy, and years of intensive study have changed
him. Today, grimly aware of the powerful and dia
bolical forces that science can unleash, he has de
veloped a deep need for personal religion.
As for the children, the Lindberghs have encour
aged them to be themselves, to place value on
acts of daring and accomplishment, on nature and
one's inner self, rather than on material things.
The Lindberghs also have encouraged their chil
dren to be self-reliant. To this end the children at
tended public schools, not the private ones which
the family could easily afford. Even when young,
the children were expected to earn their own spend
ing money. Both Jon and Land, the two older boys,
used to earn spending money by operating lobster
pots off the Darien shores. Once, when a storm blew
up, Jon, then only 10, was stranded. He didn't re
turn home for two days. "Didn't your parents
worry?" a friend asked him. His self-assured an
swer was, "They knew that I knew what to do."
His parents, fearing that the death of their first
child would cause them to overprotect Jon, had
disciplined not only him but themselves to unsenti
mental toughness.
At home with the children, the Lindberghs have
Bruno
child.
I '
, M riff - I
stressed such simple pleasures as picnics, feeding
the birds, playing in the yard, walking in the woods,
and gathering around a big fire for games, music,
and conversation. From the time the children were
very young, Lindbergh has talked with them about
nature the sky, stars, animals. He has enjoyed ski
ing, sledding, swimming, and skin diving with them.
Anne, who is 19, is a sophomore at Radcliffe Col
lege. She plays the flute, solves complicated math
problems, and writes poetry. She possesses a rare
gift for putting persons at ease.
Land, now 22, who was born in England during
the years of his parents' retreat to Long Barn, is a
student at Colorado College. He enjoys rapids
shooting. His idea of a vacation is to ride the white
water of Colorado's wild Cataract Canyon.
Jon, now 27, works for a scientific firm in San
Diego, Calif. He was scientific adviser for a movie
called "Underwater Warrior" and has established
his own reputation for daring as an explorer of
underground caves, as a mountain climber, and as
a promising marine biologist. He is married to Bar
bara Helen Robbins, daughter of a mining engi
neer, whom he met when they were students at
Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
During the ceremony itself, at the moment of the
exchange of rings, Reeve, the youngest of the Lind
berghs, came up with a bouquet. Lindbergh later
told the Rev. Walter D. Waggoner, who officiated
at the ceremony, that he has always been deeply
pleased by the warm attachment between his eldest
and youngest children.
For Jon, marriage ended four years of living in a
tent some six miles from the Stanford campus in
the Los Tiancos woods. The small tent was to the
son'what the large house beyond the trees in Darien
is to the father and mother a retreat and a sanc
tuary; a source of solace and of strength; a symbol
of a cherished privacy.
Family Weekly. January 31, 1960 5