Inventor - Charles A Lindbergh

Charles A. Lindbergh was an American aviator, inventor, and writer best known for making the first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1927. 

Charles Lindbergh, inventor and aviator

Alias:  Used name of Careu Kent with his three mistresses and their 7 children

Parents:

Father - Congressman-attorney Charles August Lindbergh (b. January 20, 1859 - d. May 24, 1924, age 65). (His birth name was Carl Mansson, born to Ola Mansson and his mistress Lovisa Carlen. Changed name when accused of embezzlement, left his wife and 7 children and took Lovisa and Baby Carl Mansson to USA, had 7 more children. Baby Carl became Charles August Lindbergh.)  Married in 1887 to Mary La Fond Lindbergh (b. May 1, 1867-d. April 16, 1898, age 30) - 3 children

- Lillian Vida Lindbergh Roberts (b. Dec 7, 1877 - d. Nov 4, 1916, age 29). Married Loren Britton Roberts in 1911, 1 child, Louise (1912-1974)

- Edith May Lindbergh (b. Jan 18, 1890-D. April 8, 1891, age 1)

- Eva Augusta Lindbergh (b. Sept 12, 1892-d. Jan 28, 1985, age 92). Married in 1916 to George W. Christie (1890-1956) 2 children. Married in 1970 to George H. Spaeth (1890-1988)

 

Mother - Married in 1901 -Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh (b. May 29, 1876-d. Sept 7, 1954, age 78), 1 child, Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1902-1974).

Marriages, Mistresses and Children:

Wife - Married in 1929 -Anne Spencer Morrow Lindberg (b. June 22, 1906 - d. Feb 7, 2001, age 94), 6 children

- Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (b. June 22, 1930 - d. March 1, 1932, age 1)

- Jon Morrow Lindbergh (b. August 16, 1932 - still living ) UPDATE: died July 29, 2021, age 88, Married March 1954 to Barbara H. Robbins, 6 children. Married to Mara Lindberg, 2 children, Anne and Alena.

- Land Morrow Lindberg (b. 1937), married on Aug 30, 1960 to Susan Miller

- Anne Spencer Lindbergh Perrin (b. Oct 2, 1940-1993, age 53) Married 3 times. 3 children. Connie Feydy,  Marek Sapieyevski, Charles Lindberg Feydy.

- Scott Lindbergh (b. August 12, 1942 -) Married Monique DuBois

- Reeve Lindbergh Tripp (b. Oct 2, 1945). Married June 19, 1968 to Richard Brown, 1 child, Jonathan (b. 1983-d.1985, age 2). Divorced on Feb 11, 1987, Married Nathaniel Tripp on Feb 11, 1987 - 1 child , Ben

Mistress - Brigitte Hesshaimer (b.1927-d.2001) - 3 children, Dyrk Hesshaimer (b.1958-d.2015), Astrid Hesshaimer Bouteuil (b. 1960), David Hesshaimer (b. 1967)

Mistress - Brigitte's sister - Marietta Hesshaimer  (b. 1924-d. July 18, 2014)- 2 children, Vago Hesshaimer (b. 1960), Christoph Hesshaimer (b.1966)

Mistress - Valeska, 2 children. She was Lindbergh's German translator and private secretary. Friend of Brigitee and Marietta.

*****

Charles Lindbergh was the only child of Charles and Evangeline who separated when he was seven years old. He grew up on his family’s farm and after high school, spent two years working on it before enrolling in University of Wisconsin to study engineering. 

 

His love of aviation began at an early age and drew him to enter Nebraska Aircraft Corporation Flight School in February 1922, without finishing his engineering degree. After working as a mechanic, parachute jumper, and barnstormer-wing walker, he purchased a war plane in 1923 and made his first solo cross-country flight from Americus Georgia to Montgomery Alabama.

He hung up his barnstorming hat and reported to Brooks Field on March 19, 1924, for a one year training course with the US Army Air Service.  Eight days before graduation, on March 5, 1925, he had a mid-air collision with another Army plane during maneuvers that forced him to bail out. At the end of training, only 18 of the 104 cadets completed the training. aLindbergh earned his Army pilot's wings and for finishing first in his class. He was given a commission of Second Lieutenant in the Air Service Reserves Corps. 

He took a job as a flight instructor in St. Louis Missouri and in October 1925, he and three other pilots were hired by the Robertson Aircraft Corporation to provide air mail service between St. Louis and Chicago with several stops on the route. 

The Daily Mail newspaper awarded prizes for achievements in aviation from 1906 to 1930. In 1919, two British aviators won for the first nonstop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland. This set off attempts by others to break the record, sponsored by a number of backers.

Two St. Louis businessmen took out a $15,000 bank loan and with Lindbergh's $2,000 the sponsored Lindbergh's historic flight on the Spirit of St. Louis which was a two ton, single seat, single engine plane that was custom built for the flight. On May 20, 1927, he departed from Roosevelt Field on Long Island New York andafter flying for 3,600 miles through very challenging weather, he landed 33-and-one-half hours later at Le Bourget Aerodrome near Paris on May 21, 1927.  He quickly became an international hero and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the first Distinguished Flying Cross by the U.S. government. 

After Lindbergh toured 82 American cities, meeting with people and promoting the commercialization of aviation, he became a goodwill ambassador for the US.  

On May 27, 1929, he married Anne Morrow, the daughter of Dwight Morrow, the American Ambassador to Mexico and a financial adviser-partner at J.P. Morgan Company. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the first woman in America to earn a glider pilot’s license and later a pilot’s license. The couple flew to five continents, mapping routes for commercial air travel on the way.  He used  his world fame to promote air mail service which caused an air mail boom that tripled the number of pilot licenses and planes.

The couple had six children but Lindbergh only saw them a few times per year. In 1929, Charles Lindbergh helped rocket pioneer Robert Goddard secure a Guggenheim endowment to expand his research. In 1931, Lindbergh sent diagrams and instructions to the Longines watch company for a watch that would make navigation easier for pilots. It was produced in 1931 and is still manufactured today.  He did not apply for a patent for this watch.

In 1930, his sister-in-law developed a fatal heart condition. He studied how the human heart could be repaired with surgery. He contacted Nobel Prize winning French surgeon Alexis Carrel and studied the perfusion of organs outside the body.  This led to Charles Lindbergh invention of a glass perfusion pump that he called "The Model T" which has been credited with making heart surgery possible.  He also described an artificial heart but it wasn't developed for many years later.  His pump was improved upon by others and led to the construction of the first heart-lung machine.

Lindbergh's Invention - Perfusion Pump

On March 1, 1932, baby Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. was abducted from their home in New Jersey and held for $50,000 ransom in gold certificates. On May 12, the child's body was found in the woods not far from their home. A 34-year old German immigrant carpenter, Richard hauptmann, was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. He died on April 3, 1936 in the electric chair at Trenton State Prison.  

The Lindberghs moved to Europe and in 1938, he bought a four acre island off the coast of France and rented homes all over Europe and the United States. This was done to seek privacy from the media in the aftermath of the tragic kidnapping and murder of their first child in 1932.
 


Lindbergh was also a renowned writer and wrote seven books in his lifetime. One of his books titled “The Spirit of St. Louis” won a Pulitzer Prize in 1954.  


Although Lindbergh's personal life has nothing to do with inventions, it is interesting to note that between 1958 and 1967, he also fathered seven other children with three mistresses. 

Ten days before his death from Lymphoma, he wrote to each one of his mistresses and asked them to keep their relationships a secret, even from their own children, until after his death.  One daughter, Astrid, figured it out after she read a magazine article in the mid-1980s. She later discovered photos and over 150 love letters from Lindbergh to her mother Brigitte Hesshaimer.  Still she kept her findings a secret until after her mother died in 2001.  In 2003, DNA confirmed that Charles Lindbergh was Astrid's father and her two siblings.   

All of the children have since obtained DNA tests and learned the identity of their father whom they only knew by his alias "Careu Kent" when he visited them once or twice a year. 

Charles Lindbergh spent his last years on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he died of lymphoma at age 72 on August 26, 1974.   His wife Anne lived another 25 years until February 2001. She died at her daughter's home at the age of 94. 


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Interesting Reading:

More on Lindbergh's Perfusion Pump Invention 

Lindbergh's Double Life