My grandmother Blanche Rose (Nathan) Hesslein & my mom, Bernice Lane (Erickson) Hesslein in Brooklyn, New York. At this time they were doing painting exhibitions in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park and would continue through the 1940s into the early 1950s. The headline of the newspaper Blanche is reading reads: Howard Hughes in Air Over Siberia.

On July 14, 1938, Howard Hughes set a record by completing a flight around the world in just 91 hours, beating the previous record set in 1933 by Wiley Post in a single engine Lockheed Vega by almost four days.

Taking off from New York City, Hughes continued to Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, Minneapolis, then returning to New York City. For this flight he flew a Lockheed 14 Super Electra (a twin-engine transport with a four-man crew) fitted with the latest radio and navigational equipment.

Hughes wanted the flight to be a triumph of aviation technology, illustrating that safe, long-distance air travel was possible. New York City gave Hughes a ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes.