Fun Fact #465
The Infatigable
If you were to ask someone who the great pioneers of air travel were you’d likely hear them say Amelia Earhart, Wiley Post, or even Bessie Colman. However few will ever tell you about Beryl Markham The Infatigable.
Born in Britain , her father –low on funds– moved to modern Kenya with her (leaving her mother and sick brother behind) where she learned to raise horses, and spent her free time with the Masai Tribe. This was both helpful and detrimental to her future. As on one hand she could now survive almost anything and was in peak shape, on the other hand when she was forced back to Britain she was considered a “Nonconformist” for refusing to wear shoes, a liberal view of intimacy, and for trying to raise horses as a woman. Eventually after getting divorced by Prince Henry at Queen Mary’s request, Beryl went home to Kenya. She then realized that flight could be helpful in Bush Hunting, delivering mail and enabling trade, buying the plane The Messenger for her new business.
Eventually though she returned home where people were once again upset at her, this time for flying, and upon learning that no one had crossed the Atlantic solo, set off to do it. Her flight lasted over 20 hours, she experienced a fuel leak and The Messenger’s engines iced up resulting in her crashing into a swamp where bleeding from several cuts she trudged through the swamp for sometime before knocking on the door of a nearby town. She then learned that she was in Novia Schotia (Maine) having gone way off course from New York, but still successful, earning her the title “The Infatigable '' as she then started the long walk to where her ride home was supposed to meet her.
However she is mostly forgotten today because most of her feats were overshadowed by what came later and her lack of manners led many historians to not want to cover her (It should be pointed out that she had Autism, which may be partly to blame for the lack of manners). While she did write a book “West With the Night” it has only been in print twice, once initially where it was somewhat successful, and the second time after Ernest Hemingway wrote that “Her writing makes me feel ashamed to call myself an author…” which drove it to have a second highly successful run in the 1980s. Meanwhile the horse breed she created now has native populations in the country of Kenya today.
I hope you have enjoyed this longer form of Fun Fact. THanks for reading and please have a wonderful day.
