Saturday, January 12, 1935 — 90 Years Ago
Amelia Earhart becomes the first pilot in history to fly solo from Hawaii to California, little more than a month after Australian aviator Charles Ulm and his crew died while attempting to traverse the same route over the Pacific Ocean. Back home at the Shore, twin 3-year-old girls from Point Pleasant Beach make a perilous trip of their own over the Manasquan River. In Freehold, Democrats and Republicans quarrel over spending in the proposed 1935 Monmouth County budget.
Amelia Earhart races for goal in Pacific flight
SAN FRANCISCO – Halfway to the Pacific coast on her hazardous flight from Honolulu, Amelia Earhart Putnam raced with a storm today to keep a rendezvous with the California morning sunshine.
Over the last half of the 2,400-mile stretch — one never flown alone before by any flier — the 36-year-old blonde, who “soloed” over the Atlantic, sought to outwit the storm gods. She fought her way steadily along the steamer lanes throughout the night, seeking favorable winds at one altitude and then another.
At intervals, she flashed a reassuring “OK.”
The storm gods flooded her takeoff field late yesterday and spattered her shiny monoplane with the red mud of the Wheeler field as she bumped and swayed down the treacherous runway. Unappeased, they gathered their forces in the tempest cauldrons off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and prepared to drench the coast states with rain and snow.
The weather report at Oakland airport, her intended destination, was for clear weather in the morning but probably rain in the afternoon as the Vancouver Island storm rolled southward.
It was anticipated, however, that Miss Earhart might reach the airport by 12 a.m., or shortly thereafter, should she hold the steady pace achieved in the early hours of her flight. The aviatrix herself after seven hours of flight, estimated she had gone halfway. This was in line with the Oakland estimates.
“The car that has everything:” The 1935 Oldsmobile, now available at an Asbury Park dealership 90 years in the past.
Twins lose way; police aid tots
BRIELLE – Although only 3-years-old, the twin daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Carlson of Hawthorne Avenue in Point Pleasant Beach, are not weaklings.
The tots were sent by their mother to a neighborhood store about a block from their home yesterday, carrying a note for groceries. However, the twins made their way to the bridge over the Manasquan River and ended up in Brielle, from where the Carlson family had recently moved.
The girls then trudged to the local post office where their plight was discovered by Miss Amy Kroh, the local postmaster.
Miss Kroh notified Police Chief George W. Legg, who took the girls back home to Point Pleasant Beach.
How about a movie? Sweet Adeline or Babes in Toyland?
Monmouth County freeholders approve $2.6 million budget for 1935
FREEHOLD – Despite increased appropriations in every county governmental department, the 1935 budget, approved on first reading by freeholders in a special session yesterday, provides for a $60,768.56 reduction in the amount to be raised by taxation.
The budget calls for total appropriations of $2,631,924.36, which is $182,380.08 higher than last year’s figure of $2,449,544.28.
The amount to be raised by taxation this year is $1,716,475.72, as compared to $1,777,244.28 in 1934.
The schedule was approved over the objection of Freeholder Joseph Mayer. Considerable bickering occurred between Freeholder Director Frederic P. Reichey, Freeholders Raymond Wycoff and Mayer over an increase of $90,948.64 in the road and bridges appropriations.
Mayer and Wycoff, both Republicans, wanted appropriations cut another $100,000. To this, Reichey, a Democrat, replied that additional revenues were anticipated from the state but that such funds could not be collected unless the board appropriates the amounts in the budget.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park Press NJ archives for Jan. 12