Charles Lindbergh's
Final Approach.

Charles Lindbergh became an international hero on May 21, 1927, when he completed the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight, covering 3,600 miles from New York to Paris in 33.5 hours aboard the Spirit of St. Louis. His feat transformed aviation from a dangerous novelty into a credible form of transportation and made him one of the most famous people alive. He went on to serve as an aviation consultant, explorer, author, and — controversially — an isolationist political figure before World War II.

In his later years, Lindbergh became deeply committed to environmental conservation and indigenous rights, spending considerable time in East Africa and Polynesia. He fell in love with Maui's remote eastern coast, particularly the Hana district, and made it his final home. When doctors diagnosed him with lymphoma in 1974, he chose to leave the hospital in New York against medical advice and return to Hana. He spent his final weeks at the home of close friends, designing the details of his own burial with the same attention he once gave flight plans.

He died on August 26, 1974, and was buried the same day in the churchyard of Palapala Hoʻomau Congregational Church, built in 1857 from coral limestone. His simple granite slab rests beneath a Java plum tree, inscribed with Psalm 139:9: "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea." The choice of this remote Maui churchyard, far from any monument or fanfare, reflected his evolved priorities in later life.