THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW

A newly married couple sent out to make history on their honeymoon. Glen and Bessie Hyde wanted to float the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Glen would send a time record, and Bessie would be the first woman float the rapids. But their ambition turned into mystery. The Hyded were never seen again after November 18 1928. Glen Hyde was an experienced rapids rider, and built the scow they would sail in. Bessie was a bohemian, having dabbled theater and poetry writing. The two met as passengers on a boat sailing to Los Angeles. Bessie had a husband, but by 1928 the two married - one day after Bessie's divorce was finalized. The honeymooners left Green River, Utah October 20, 1928. They wanted to reach Needles, California by early December. The pair were last seen November 18, 1928. They stopped in the Grand Canyon and hiked to fetch supplies. They met with photographer Emory Kolb who took pictures of Glenn and Bessie. When Kolb noted their lack of life jackets, t...

   A 16 year old girl answered an add to join an expedition traveling the world in an automobile. "Brains, Beauty & Breeches" the ad said, "World Tour Offer For One Lucky Young Woman." Lucky indeed for Aloha Wanderwell, who became the "Amelia Earhart of the Automobile." Aloha worked as mechanic, driver, camera operator, translator, even seamstress. She became the first woman to drive an automobile around the world, yet is not widely known today. Idris Galcia Welsh was born October 13, 1906 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Her father died in World War I. Her stepfather moved the family to Europe where Idris attended convent schools in Belgium and France. Never one to obey others' rules, Idris answered the world tour ad in 1922. Walter "Cap" Wanderwell created the expedition to promote world travel and the newly formed League of Nations post World War I. The aim was to visit as many countries as possible. Cap gave Idris the name Aloha Wanderw...

  On July 5, 1894 a young married mother of three embarked on a journey. Sponsored by a water company with a stake of $100, she changed her name, and the future of women. Annie Londonderry's journey across the world via bicycle may have been a bit dubious, but she gave women freedom in both transportation and fashion. With $10,000 and the pride of women at stake, Annie Kopchovsky pedaled her way into history. Annie Cohen was born in Latvia in 1870. Her parents immigrated with Annie, her older sister, and younger brother to Boston in 1875. With both parents deceased when Annie was 17 and her older sister married, Annie and her younger brother Bennett took care of their younger siblings. In 1888 she married Simon "Max" Kopchovsky. Annie and Max had three children. Max was a peddler and Annie sold advertising for several Boston newspapers. According to Annie's story two Boston businessmen, sure that a woman could never complete the trip, offered $10,000 to a woman who co...

  We all know Abraham Lincoln : tall, beard, stove pipe hat, ended slavery. But does anyone know Lincoln would never have graced the penny had it not been for a feisty female detective? Kate Warne, the first female detective in U. S. History protected Lincoln before he took office. As a female spy she gathered intel on the south for the northern forces. Kate Warne was a lady like no other, especially when there were no other ladies like her. Kate Warne was one child among many born to a poor family in Erin, New York. That's really all anyone knows about her past, as well as she was widowed at age 23. Her life, as far as historians know, truly began in 1852 when she entered the office of Allan Pinkerton in response to his ad for detectives wanted. Allan Pinkerton, Scottish immigrant and cooper by trade, (and staunch abolitionist) was elected deputy sheriff in Chicago, then special agent of the U.S. Post Office. He opened a detective agency, the first of its kind in America. No wome...

What image springs to mind when you hear the word author? (For me it's Grande Dame des Lettres Canadienne Margaret Atwood.) But would you picture a pre-teen from 1927? You should, given that Barbara Newhall Follett published two novels in her early teens. But Barbara Newhall Follett it is known more as a famous missing person, vanishing December 7 1939, never to be seen again. Barbara Newhall Follett was born in Hanover, New Hampshire on March 3, 1914. Her parents were Helen and Wilson Follett, both writers and literary critics. Wilson Follett taught English at Dartmouth, Brown, and Yale before accepting a job at Knopf Publishing in New York City. Helen educated Barbara at home and encouraged a love of all things literary. Barbara began typing letters to friends and family and even set up her own office, all by the age of four. She counted Beethoven, Strauss, and Wagner as her imaginary friends. By age 6 she'd written a 4,500 word story - The Life of the Spinning Wheel, the Roc...

In 1969 British journalist David Frost introduced his guest - Penelope Ashe - author of a recent best-selling novel. The novel, Naked Came the Stranger , was an erotic literary smash. Surely a comely young sexy-librarian type wrote the book, and would soon take the stage all intellectual in a mini dress and Go-Go boots, glasses askew just so. When Frost announced Miss Ashe the author came out, and came out, and came out, until the stage was filled with 23 men and two women.  Naked Came the Stranger  was a literary hoax. Mike McGrady, a journalist for Newsday magazine, decided to pull a prank on the publishing industry. He felt that books at that time were all sizzle and smut. Jacqueline Susann was publishing's it girl after the success of Valley of the Dolls - a pill popping, booze soaked showbiz pot boiler. McGrady thought that if "trash" like Valley of the Dolls  could earn best seller status, then he could do the same. He asked a team of 25 writers - mostly men - to ...

Three of the twentieth centuries biggest wits - Noel Coward, Fanny Brice, and Dorothy Parker - all recieved a career boost years after their deaths from an unlikely source, forger Lee Israel. Not exactly a master criminal, Israel forged letters from literary and entertainment legends. Her operation was fairly low-key. She wasn't caught in some grand sting that culminated in a shootout. She was simply approached by FBI agents and agreed to be questioned. Lee Israel's greatest lie wasn't the letters she made up, but the story she told about her forgery operation in her 2008 memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? (upon which the 2018 film is based.) Contradictions abound, but, as a writer, Lee Israel knew how to tell a good story. Leonore Carol Israel was born December 3, 1939 in Brooklyn to a Jewish family, with whom she wasn't close. She graduated CUNY Brooklyn in 1961. For most of the 1960s she was a freelance writer, writing for Soap Opera Digest and The New York Times . I...