Dorothy Palmer

Daughter of Edward and Alice Stead Binney. He co-invented the Crayola Crayon. Stately at five foot ten inches tall, Dorothy was widely known for her interest in aviation, sports and scientific matters. She was the first woman to climb Mt Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous forty eight states. It was during that climbing expedition in 1908 that she met George Putnam (future husband) and John Muir. Dorothy was an accomplished pianist and athlete who rowed crew at Wellesley College. At one time she was one of the country's outstanding amateur women swimmers and won many cups and other awards in both the east and west coasts. She was a close friend of Amelia Earhart. Dorothy was the first woman to fly as a commercial passenger round trip coast to coast. She was the only woman to swim to the surface from a submerged submarine. During World War II, she opened her home called Immokolee to sailors training at Fort Pierce in Florida for the nascent Underwater Demolition Teams, the forerunners of Navy SEALs, and their families.

Dorothy married George Palmer Putnam, III, on 26 October 1911 at her parent's home in Sound Beach (now old Greenwich), CT. George was the son of John Bishop and Frances Faulkner Putnam and the grandson of George Palmer and Victorine Haven Putnam. George the grandfather was the famous book publisher of Putnam's Sons of New York. In his own right, George III was a powerful figure in the publishing industry. He published Charles Lindburgh's autobiographical account of his early life and his non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic and Amelia Earhart's first solo flight by a woman across the Atlantic story as well as her biography. George and Dorothy had 2 sons; David Binney and George Palmer Jr.

After their divorce in Dec 1929, George married Amelia Earhart on 08 Feb 1931, and Dorothy married on 12 Jan 1930 in the West Indies Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Frank Monroe Upton. They were married for about 5 years before divorcing. She married, as her third husband, poet and artist Donald Benson Blanding on 13 Jun 1940. They were divorced in 1947. She remarried for the last time on 21 July 1947 to her fourth husband, Lewis Hamilton Palmer. Lew died suddenly of a heart attack in 1951.