After her first difficulties in learning to keep house instead of directing others to do so, and after a first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, Amy gave birth to a well-behaved and contented baby and named her after her two grandmothers, Amelia Mary. Two and a half years later, a second girl was born. The family lived in Kansas City in a home that had been a wedding present from Amy's father who lived in Atchison, Kansas. Edwin Earhart was often gone settling claims for the railroads, and Amy often went with him. The two Earhart girls therefore spent much time at their Otis grandparents' home. In fact, as they became old enough to go to school, they spent a couple of school years there returned to in their Kansas City home in the summers.
The Otises believed the girls were better off in thier home, because Edwin Earhart had a knack for earning only a minimal living and he spent that money pursuing dreams instead of reality. One year, he spent money saved for taxes endeavoring to complete and sell an invention to the railroad industry, only to find that two years before someone had already sold them a similar invention. The next year, when he received a $100 windfall for settling a railroad right-of-way dispute, he spent it on a family trip to St. Louis to see the World's Fair ignoring more pressing family needs.
After this trip, Amelia designed and built her own roller coaster, with the help of a young Otis uncle. The contraption consisted of a quivering plank trestle fastened to a shed roof on one end and the ground on the other. A small cart was to carry the rider down the incline. When the first cart, with Amelia as test pilot, ran off the trestle and dumped its passenger to the ground, Amy pronounced the contraption too dangerous and it was dismantled.
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