He was immediately taken with her beauty, grace and intellect. For Morrow, the attraction was mutual. Lindbergh's whirlwind courtship of Morrow included flying lessons. Morrow soon discovered she shared her fiance's passion for flying. Behind her reserved exterior was a daring woman ready to seek new adventures.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, right, stands with Charles Lindbergh in front of their Lockheed Sirius, which took them on explorations around the world.

On May 27, 1929, Anne Morrow married Charles Lindbergh in a private ceremony on her father's estate. Instead of taking on the role of a traditional wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh became her husband's navigator and co-pilot on expeditions which took them around the world. Their journeys helped airlines, like Pan Am, establish air routes through unchartered territories. She became the most traveled passenger in the world. A curious public followed her every move as her exotic adventures swept her off to far-flung continents. Anne Morrow Lindbergh began to share with the American public what it felt like to fly - the thrill, the danger, even the ordinariness of it all.

The tremendous publicity Lindbergh received as the "first lady" of flying helped convince Americans that flying might not be quite as hazardous as they once thought. Because she made flying seem something the average American might be able to do, Lindbergh came to symbolize the possibility of aviation for everyone.

The Lindberghs' expeditions provided her with compelling subject matter for her other great passion - writing. The Lindberghs' 1931 trip from Canada to China in their single-engine Lockheed Sirius would serve as the basis for Anne Morrow Lindbergh's first book, North to the Orient. She would later publish her diaries from this exhilarating period of her life. In them, Lindbergh reveals a woman who in some ways was conflicted about aviation's future impact on foreign lands. While she realized aviation would result in certain technological improvements, she feared the sudden onslaught of outside influences might spoil the inherent beauty of these cultures.

Over the course of her life, Lindbergh would write more than a dozen books. Perhaps her best-known work was Gift from the Sea, which topped the best-sellers list in 1956. In it, Lindbergh offered inspirational essays reflecting her views about the meaning of a woman's life. Lindbergh's own life left an indelible mark in the fields of both aviation and literature. She died February 7, 2001.