THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING SUSPECT NO. 1. Lise Pearlman

the reason for Lindbergh’s brush off, some reporters still lingered as his white-faced wife was lifted out and driven away in a limousine. Her doctor had Anne taken directly to the hospital, worried about the condition of her fetus. The doctor then ordered bed rest for the remainder of Anne’s pregnancy. The next day’s newspaper accounts mentioned Anne’s poor condition upon exiting the plane. Lindbergh was livid. He thought the press should have just reported that the pair made the flight in fourteen and three-quarter hours, setting a new transcontinental record by three full hours.

      That late spring of 1930, the Morrow household had its own small hospital ward. Dwight, Jr. was convalescing from his most recent breakdown; Elisabeth was resting from a mild heart attack; and Anne awaited her first born. With time on his hands, Lindbergh offered to take his father-in-law flying over Memorial Day weekend to help him with his new political campaign. Dwight Morrow had been appointed to a vacant Senate seat. He now had to compete in a primary race to win his party’s endorsement for the next general election. For the first time in quite a while, the two men had reason to forget their differences. It thrilled Morrow to have his famous son-in-law take him airborne, publicizing his candidacy with a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.

      As the impending birth of Anne’s baby was the center of everyone’s attention, Elisabeth left Englewood to convalesce at the family’s estate at North Haven, Maine. She was depressed by the misfortune of her own failing health and fading prospects. She had just established the preschool in Englewood with her friend Connie Chilton a few months before but wondered if she should uproot herself and consider marriage after all.

      Meanwhile, Anne tried to religiously follow her doctor’s orders to stay home for the next two months. But her husband had other ideas. He talked Anne into sneaking out on June 9, 1930 — presumably against doctor’s orders — to test a monoplane. It appalled Mrs. Morrow to see her son-in-law needlessly endanger Anne in her delicate condition, but Mrs. Morrow was powerless to intervene. Tempting fate again when Anne was even nearer her due date, the pair escaped the media on Thursday, June 19, 1930, and drove from Englewood to nearby Teterboro Airport. There, they took a short hop in his plane to Hartford, Connecticut, and back. One assumes Lindbergh brought along the ladder he had built Anne to make it easier to climb in and out.

      Lindbergh had made arrangements for Anne to give birth in a private suite at a hospital in New York, but he cancelled those plans just before the baby arrived. Lindbergh refused to share any details. Newspapermen speculated that the baby must have been born early and, perhaps, did not survive due to injuries suffered before birth. So many reporters hovered at the gates of the Morrow estate that the Morrows hired twenty-four-hour guards. But the family remained mum.

      To avoid revealing the highly coveted news to a telegraph operator, Lindbergh planned to use an assumed name when he notified his mother of her first grandchild’s birth. He protected the message further by developing a code for the baby’s sex. If it were a boy, the message would read “advise purchasing property”; a girl would be signified by “advise accepting terms of contract.” Anne likely noted the difference in symbolism between the active way her husband characterized a prospective son and the passive language for a daughter. She feared that her husband would be extremely let down if they had a girl.

      Photographers crowded by the gates of the Morrow estate for days as Anne’s pregnancy neared its end. On June 22, 1930 — Anne’s own twenty-fourth birthday — Dr. Everett Hawks delivered her new baby son at the Morrows’ Englewood home. Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., weighed 7 and ¾ pounds. The family obstetrician noted his head was quite large but told his grandmother that was like his grandfather’s head.

      Unlike her husband, Anne was totally absorbed in her new infant. It delighted her that the boy had features of both parents — a variation of their blue eyes, Anne’s nose, his father’s eyelashes, mouth and cleft chin. A household member told the press that the baby’s hair was blond at birth, but that was not so. What the press would focus on more was whether the child had been born with serious health problems, which the family categorically denied. New York Journal reporter Laura Vitray later observed that “a great deal has been whispered from time to time about the Lindberghs’ son not being normal, about its being deaf and dumb.” She didn’t believe it, and he showed no signs of either of those impairments. But the scarcity of pictures kept the rumors going.

      Though the family never shared their son’s medical records, it is quite possible that Charles, Jr. did have worrisome congenital issues.

      The baby’s pediatrician, Dr. Van Ingen, later described having diagnosed the Lindberghs’ first-born at some point during his check-ups with “moderate” rickets. Van Ingen prescribed strong doses of Vitamin D — equal to 50 teaspoons of cod liver oil, almost 17 times what a child might ordinarily be given. In addition, Van Ingen suggested a heat lamp, and Anne made sure to take the boy out in the sun during the day. The baby’s small toes curled in on both feet, he would be very late in developing teeth, he had unusually dry skin, and two other symptoms which could possibly indicate a far worse condition than “moderate” rickets.

      Anne made many visits to the pediatrician during her son’s short life. Yet the only medical record his pediatrician shared with the medical examiner after the boy’s death was his 20-month check-up on February 18, 1932 — less than two weeks before he was kidnapped. Dr. Van Ingen reported that he made a note in that visit of the child’s enlarged, “square” head and unclosed fontanel long after the soft spot in the baby’s head would normally have closed. Back then, doctors depended on primitive x-rays which did not show much. There were no brain scans, ultrasounds or MRIs.

      Although not diagnosed by Dr. Van Ingen, both the enlarged, “square head” and unclosed fontanel could potentially have been caused by hydrocephalus — an abnormal build-up of cerebrospinal fluid that, depending on its severity, can possibly lead to brain damage and premature death. Hydrocephalus may be inherited, sometimes caused by traumatic events in utero, including oxygen deprivation suffered at high altitudes, carbon monoxide poisoning, and sometimes by trauma to the head after birth. Brain shunts capable of draining the excess fluid and enabling hydrocephalic children to live long, productive lives were not invented until l949.

      Except for insisting at the last moment that Anne should have their child at home in Englewood, Lindbergh had seemed indifferent to the birth of their new baby. Anne, meanwhile, doted on both her newborn and her husband. She was glad to see the baby’s dark hair at birth soon give way to light hair like his father’s. She wanted her husband to identify with their child. A few more photos were then circulated of a smiling blond cherub, with the baby looking the picture of health.

      Infant Charlie was dubbed “The Little Eaglet.” He quickly drew attention that rivaled that paid to his father — newsreels and stories featured in scores of magazines and newspapers, even a new song. France adopted the baby as an honorary citizen. Yet photographs remained few and far between. All through July of 1930 Anne remained at the Morrow estate with her newborn. Lindbergh flew other mail routes as a consultant but was impatient for Anne to feel ready to return to the air. She had not joined him for any long flights since late April. Even though the Lindberghs occupied a separate wing of the Morrows’ Georgian mansion, he could not wait to be out from under his in-laws’ roof and back in the sky.

      Anne, in contrast, enjoyed tending to her newborn, despite finding it awkward at first to hug him. Anne had just read up on the latest child psychology advising against coddling babies too much. She knew her husband felt the same way. Anne still wanted to stay at home and “do nothing else but care for my baby.” She soon began indulging her instinct to cradle her son in her arms and sing to him. Anne had a beautiful voice honed with frequent practice. It delighted her to serenade her son.

      Reporters continued to dig for insights from the Morrow household staff. Whether staff spread information they were not supposed to share, or it was just the sparseness of photographs of “Little Lindy,” the press continued to speculate about the Eaglet’s condition. The preoccupation with their son’s health greatly bothered both Anne and her husband. Indeed, some members of the media were now reporting with more regularity on Lindbergh’s flashes of temper and rude behavior.

      Lindbergh felt cornered at Englewood. By early August, Anne yielded to her