Under a Wing: A Memoir

It took awhile to read this book because I wanted to savor each wonderful phrase. The writing is outstanding. Told from the perspective of the youngest child of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh, the reader learns of an idyllic childhood.

After the loss of their first-born son, the Lindbergh's sought time out of sight from the public eye. Wanting to protect their children and themselves from the invasive media and overwhelming curiosity of the public, the rented or purchased homes far away from cities.

The children lived in large houses in the country where they could romp and play. With little contact from others than family members, Reeve writes in detail of her love of family and stories of uncles, aunts, grandparents and show more her parents.

While she absolutely adored her father, she is quite honest regarding his difficult personality and his near constant berating of Anne and the children. Everything had to be exact, including a journal regarding how much was spent for an item. A .05 package of rubber bands had to be noted and explained.

Stating that the house and the family breathed easily when her father left, the reader obtains a picture of a dynamic, charasmatic man who loved his family, was, for the most part a doting father, but simply could not help himself in perfectionism and obsessive, critical demands.

At the time the book was written, Reeve did not know that her father had three other families in Europe. She knew he was missing for long periods of time. She knew her mother had more strength than any other person.

Highly recommended.

Five Stars! show less

This is a gem of a book. After reading the Aviator's Wife I was hungry for more info on the Lindberghs and my library search turned up this. Written by the youngest Lindbergh child, Reeve, it is not a linear account, but a true memoir of impressions and memories of growing up with such famous parents and under the shadow of a tragedy. I knew of her as a children's author, but was excited to find this book for adults. She writes beautifully and poetically about the "give-and-take between public impression and private memory, each informing, educating, correcting and ultimately humanizing the other, over time. . . I have learned that by pursing my own history consistently, pursuing it with compassion and without fear, I will discover over show more and over again that the people I love best can never be lost to me." (195) This book was written in 1998, 20+ years after her father's death, and during her mother's slow decline to old age (she died in 2001). Reeve looks at her childhood from the impressionable view of a child, complete with smells, feelings and spatial memory of favorite places and memories of favorite people. She also looks at family dynamics and the sheer force of her father's will ("in his presence we became much more completely and perilously alive") and her mother's intelligence and sensitivity. ("she taught us that any experience worth living through was worth writing about") She also shares her close relationship with her siblings, especially Anne, who died at age 59 from cancer. The importance of place and family identity is explored beautifully and she does not shy away from difficult topics (Charles Lindbergh's perceived antisemitism in WWII, for example) but she also accurately catches the distance a child feels from the life and actions of an adult parent, especially things that happened before her birth. The same goes for the kidnapping. The family resisted letting that define them, to the betterment of all the subsequent children. The title is so apt, as is the cover picture that it predisposed me to a pleasant read and I wasn't disappointed. show less

5806 Under a Wing A Memoir, by Reeve Lindbergh (read 21 Oct 2022) I had this book and decided to read it because I wanted to see what the author, the youngest of Charles Lindbergh's legitimate children (born in 1945), had to say about her father's German bastards. The book was published in 1998, before the existence of said children was known to the author. The book details the autocratic behavior of Lindbergh in the family's life and how, when his daughter learned of her father's infamous Des Moines speech , she effectively deprecates same for its anti-Semitic tenor. One cannot blame his daughter for her admiration for her parents but she sees her father's errors and the Wikipedia article on her shows she was duly bothered by his show more devious and despicable actions. show less

I just finished reading breathless recollection of the pioneering cross-Atlantic flight of "Lucky Lindy" in The Start 1904-30 and so it felt right to read about the family privacy so jealously guarded after the aviation breakthrough and the murder of Charles Lindbergh III. Reeve recalls a self-described "non-benevolent dictator" running the children and household like a martinet. Reeve recalls the long train of false Charles Lindbergh III's at the door and writing and her understandably appalled feelings about humorous references to this horrific crime. There is also much about her literate, sensitive, and creative mother Anne Morrow Lindbergh, including dealing with her senility and sharing the painful night of the sudden death of show more Reeve's son. The Morrow branch back in Detroit also makes for interesting reading. I was very surprised not to see any extensive recollection of the motivation to step away from privacy to contribute to the invention of the perfusion pump, but I guess that makes sense as the high point of activity on that was 10 years before Reeve's birth. ...I guess there is much tragic here, much realized in the presence of the kidnapping in overwhelming intensity instead of the more recent perfusion triumph.... show less

Another good Lindbergh book, this time from the youngest daughter of the aviator and Anne Morrow.
Gives another perspective on the family. Well-written.

Another perspective of the Lindberghs, a family which has been in the public eye for almost 80 years. This memoir, written by Charles and Anne Lindbergh's youngest daughter, gives short, vivid memories of grandparents, uncles, Father, Mother, homes, furnishings, siblings and reflections on things not spoken of in the family. Reeve offers her dreamy impressions as a young child and then tries to make sense of her memories from the perspective of an adult. Reeve, like her mother, suffered the loss of a young, beautiful son as well as a beloved sister and she shares her mother's love for writing. She was her mother's caretaker in the last years of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's long life. An interesting window into the characters and show more personalities of her famous parents and their family life as seen through the eyes of a loving and articulate daughter. show less

This was an interesting book that provided a lot of insight into the personal life of Lindbergh. The book is written by his youngest daughter who was born well after the famous flight. Everything is seen through her eyes and her memories from childhood. In that respect it is hard to tell what is truely real and what is a distorted memory of a loving child. It was interesting to learn how he took his personal life into his perfessional life. For example, he had lists for everything in his personal life which translated into his safety checklists which revolutionized the industry and saved countless lives.