by the mid-1930s, there was a female pilot named laura ingalls who was up there with amelia earhart in terms of national celebrity. that may be ringing a bell for you, but she is not laura ingles wilder who wrote "little house on the prairie." but in her, laura ingalls was more famous distant cousin, the author. laura ingalls was famous for being a pilot. she was the first woman to ever fly across the united states nonstop from east to west. she was the first woman to ever fly solo from north america to south america. she set the overall record for the fastest flight by anyone from the west coast to the east coast. she set another record flying although around all of south america. she set the world rod for barrel rolls, 714 barrel rolls in a row over lambert field in st. louis. she then set the record for loop-the-loops, 980 all in a row. this was the absolute peak of the golden age of aviation. americans were just crazy for aviation, fascinated by it and all the great fliers became great stars. laura ingalls was famous enough as a dare devil pilot that by 1934 it would literally garn

correspondent laura ingalls has more. what are people on long island saying about how they're going to handle the costs this coming winter, laura? >> hey, john. some homeowners we have been talking to on long island are ready to make major budget cuts because they know what is coming down the pike. some of them told us that they already called their home oil heating companies to set up payments for this winter. they know how bad it is going to be. more people used heating oil in the northeast than anywhere else in the country. we have been following rob, making deliveries, seeing oil trucks roll through neighborhoods is a common sight, but it is costing homeowners nearly twice as much as what they paid last year. the owner of family fuel and heating service where rob is the owner says his consumers are really concerned. >> now the prices have gone astronomically high. prices for typical consumers to pay normal delivery, usually 170, 180 gallons, used to be 5, 600, now it is a thousand or 1100. >> according to st. louis fed

in the end, laura ingalls, this incredibly famous aviator, one of the biggest celebrities in the whole country, she was convicted of being an agent of the german government. among the uncomfortable public revelation from her trial was that when she went to her gestapo handler at the german embassy and asked for more missions, more important assignments, she apparently didnt just want to promote hitler and nazism in the united states, she also volunteered to spy for the germans, to steal u. s. secrets to help the knots nazis against us. what emerged in her trial was that when she went to her gestapo handler to ask for more to do, for ask for more assignments, he apparently told her that the most important thing she could do was more of what she had already been doing. specifically, he told her that there is nothing more valuable she could do for the nazi cause then keep giving speeches for something called the america first committee. the america first committee was the leading organization at the time in the united states that was opposed to the u.s. joining the war to fight against hi

it was -- she lived actually near where laura ingalls wilder said her fourth book in the little house series, on the banks of plum creek was the books of pauline live right near plum creek. summers alternated with arctic winters and periodic plagues of grasshoppers wiped out gardens and houses and farms in moments. despite the challenges, five years later when pauline finalized her claim, , she ownea 14 by 15-foot cabin, cattle, appeared and chickens. she produced or hundred bushels of wheat, , dozens of eggs and . she lived off her land for 14 years and then sold it for $1280, more than $30,000 today. to make additional income for our retirement in a in a se in town she carried the mortgage. a lot of the women homesteaders after they proved up their claims they would hang on to the land and rent it to a farmer and they wouldn't income for the rest of their lives, in many cases, or until they wanted to do something else. this was a very unusual thing for a woman to be able to have her own money in that way. very the review 19 century as especially women have access to college and prof