Scott Carpenter's Guest Essay #12

Forty-Six Years Ago:
Astronaut’s mother treated as a celebrity
(First published in the Daily Camera, on January 30, 2003)
By Silvia Pettem

Hometown hero Scott Carpenter achieved national fame in May 1962 when he became the second American to orbit the Earth. While he was in outer space, his mother, Florence, was at home in Boulder waiting for news of his safe return.

A media frenzy began with press conferences a week prior to liftoff, and Florence Carpenter was interviewed extensively. A typical Camera headline read, “Astronaut’s mother is keeping calm.”  Florence told reporters, “The magnificence of the experience he is going to have is so great that it would erase any apprehension I might have.”

A media frenzy began with press conferences a week prior to liftoff, and Florence Carpenter was interviewed extensively. A typical Camera headline read, “Astronaut’s mother is keeping calm.”  Florence told reporters, “The magnificence of the experience he is going to have is so great that it would erase any apprehension I might have.”

To avoid an onslaught of photographers, Florence spent the night before the flight at Boulder Community Hospital where she was head of the medical records department. At 4:30 am, the two policemen drove her to her home in their patrol car.

The police officers shared coffee with Florence while she secluded herself with three family friends in the Mapleton Mobile Home Park. Besides her own television set, two other sets were installed for the day so that they could watch all three networks at once.

Outside, the scene was chaotic. In the pre-satellite-dish-days, the local telephone company spent a week setting up a looming television tower so that the three network stations could broadcast from her home.

On the day of Scott Carpenter’s flight, NBC, CBS, and ABC reporters huddled outside his mother’s home, waiting for a glimpse of her and ready to record every word. The liftoff, she told them, was the most exciting moment, and she admitted to feeling anxious and tense during the capsule’s re-entry.

The astronaut’s mother’s words were relayed from the trailer park’s makeshift tower to another temporary tower at the University of Colorado. There, NBC set up a nine-by-twelve-foot screen. From CU, the broadcasts were relayed to Denver for transmission all over the country and overseas.

Florence’s first official words after her son’s successful splashdown were, “Today we have seen courage, determination, dedication, and power of the United States, and we know now why we shall never be buried.”* She added that his landing was the happiest moment of her life. Only then did she step outside into the glare of the television cameras before being escorted to a news conference at CU.

“I felt great patriotism,” said Patrolman See, now retired and living in Texas. “Mrs. Carpenter gave me two plastic piggy banks in the shape of space capsules for my children in return for my staying with her. My son still has his.”

*In fact, Florence Carpenter (called Toye by friends and family members) would be buried that fall at the Green Mountain Cemetery, after a long battle with tuberculosis. In her official statement, “ . . . we shall never be buried,” she was scoffing at Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s memorable taunt from 1956. He insisted to Western ambassadors that history was on the side of communism, “We will bury you.” Toye knew otherwise, and on the day her son returned safely from spaceflight, she said so. —Editor’s note.