Anna Poff
Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum
Everyone’s heard the story of Amelia Earhart, how she vanished in her historic flight, but what some may not know is that she was born in a white house just half a mile from Benedictine.
The Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum (AEBM) overlooks the Missouri River and is rich with the history of Amelia Earhart’s life and the history of Atchison.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize she was only 39 when she disappeared. All of these things that happened to Amelia, and a lot, she did a lot more things than I think a lot of people know about too,” museum director Mika Schrader told the Circuit.
Amelia spent her life exploring many interests and activities. She was a fashion designer, a gravel truck driver for a time, a photographer, author, social worker (her greatest passion outside of aviation), luggage designer, writer for Cosmopolitan and counselor and professor at Purdue University, all before the age of 40.
With so many stories about her life to be told, each room in the museum lends a hand in painting a picture of this woman and the legacy she left behind from airplanes to replicas of her outfit designs to her childhood interest in bugs.
“I think that’s a really valuable thing to take away is that you don’t have to be kind of zoned into one interest if you don’t want to be, if you want to experiment with where your life is going to take you, and apply your experience from one aspect of your life to another,” Schrader said. “I think Amelia does a really good job of inspiring people to do that and really chasing their passion.”
Schrader also highlighted the importance of this idea for college students. In college, “a lot of people are finding themselves. A lot of people don’t know what they’re going to do after college…there’s so much more out there than I think a lot of us feel right now.”
The museum itself offers many opportunities for students including discounted admission, an up and coming Clue experience, potential networking events, and an opportunity to learn about history in a fun and unique way.
Currently, three BC students have been interning at the AEBM for at least a year with new ones starting this year and more spots are open.
The museum is hoping to begin offering programs specifically geared toward Benedictine students and is looking for students who might have ideas for what they would like to see at the museum to reach out.
“If a student wants to actually come and create a program and work with us, we’re really open to that and really open to figuring out ways that people want to engage with us,” according to Schrader.
Schrader highlighted how many view college as a means of getting a job and see the job after college as the goal, the end of the road. However as she says, “Amelia offers an inspiration of how you can really take life by the reins and enjoy it in your own way. She was not going to take no for an answer if she wanted to do something, and I think, when it comes to chasing your passions, that’s something that a lot of young people need to be reiterated today.”