I went to college and liked English and languages but most of all, I liked Science. I didn't make many friends in school. Under my picture in my 1916 yearbook, a message said,"The girl in brown who walks alone." This hurt me a lot.

I returned to Los Angeles to visit my parents, who had recently gotten back together after being separated. Sam Chapman, a young chemical engineer, liked me a lot and proposed to me many times. I liked Sam but not enough to marry him. One day, my father took me to an air circus where they learned that it took most people about ten hours to learn how to fly. I signed up for a trial flight and when it was over, I knew that I wanted to fly.

I decided to take lessons but they cost $500 and my father couldn't afford to pay. To pay for the lessons, I got my first job working in the mail room of a telephone office. During the flying lessons, I learned how to do take-offs, landings, slips, stalks, spins, and loops. I did not learn how to do stunts. Most of the time, I hung around watching and listening. I dressed like most of the other flyers and wore khaki pants, a scarf, knee-length flying jacket and a helmet. By the next summer, I had my own plane, a Kinner Canary.

In 1924, after my parents got a divorce, I sold my plane and bought a car to take my mother to Boston. In Boston, I became a social worker at the Denison House, the oldest house there. I worked mostly with Syrian and Chinese foreigners. I spent most of my time at the Denison House and had little time to fly.

Four years later, I was chosen to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air. I was accompanied by Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. We started in Trepassey, Newfoundland and ended our trip in Wales. Overall, the trip took twenty hours and forty minutes. When I got back, I was the center of attention and was automatically famous, even though I was only a passenger.

After I flew over the Atlantic, I bought an Avro Moth and went to California. In 1929, I flew in the first Women's Air Derby from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland, Ohio. I sold my Avro Moth and bought a Lockhead Vega for the Derby. Twenty women were entered in it and the whole race took eight days. I placed third. In 1931, I married George Palmer Putnam. We were married at his mother's house in Connecticut. In 1932, I decided I wanted to fly across the Atlantic again and this time alone. I took off on May 20, from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. I didn't drink coffee or tea. I used smelling salts to keep me awake. I landed in Londonderry, Ireland, fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes later. My dream now was to fly around the world.