Neil Armstrong - Personal Life

Personal Life

Armstrong was approached by political groups from both ends of the spectrum after his aeronautical career. Unlike former astronauts and U.S. Senators John Glenn and Harrison Schmitt, Armstrong declined all offers. Personally, he was in favor of states' rights and against the United States acting as the "world's policeman".

In the late 1950s, Armstrong applied at a local Methodist church to lead a Boy Scout troop. When asked for his religious affiliation, he labeled himself as a Deist. His mother later said that Armstrong's religious views caused her grief and distress in later life as she was more religious. His official biography also describes him as a deist.

In 1972, Armstrong was welcomed into the town of Langholm, Scotland, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong; he was made the first freeman of the burgh, and happily declared the town his home. The Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed 400-year-old law that required him to hang any Armstrong found in the town.

In the fall of 1979, Armstrong was working at his farm near Lebanon, Ohio. As he jumped off of the back of his grain truck, his wedding ring caught in the wheel, tearing off the tip of his ring finger. He collected the severed digit and packed it in ice, and surgeons reattached it at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. In February 1991, a year after his father had died, and nine months after the death of his mother, he suffered a mild heart attack while skiing with friends at Aspen, Colorado.

Armstrong married his first wife Janet Shearon on January 28, 1956. The couple soon added to their family. Their son Eric was born in 1957, followed by daughter, Karen, in 1959. Karen died of complications related to an inoperable brain tumor in January 1962. The following year, the Armstrongs welcomed their third child, son Mark. Armstrong's first wife, Janet, divorced him in 1994, after 38 years of marriage. He had met his second wife, Carol Held Knight (b. 1945),) in 1992 at a golf tournament, where they were seated together at the breakfast table. She said little to Armstrong, but two weeks later she received a call from him asking what she was doing—she replied she was cutting down a cherry tree; 35 minutes later Armstrong was at her house to help out. They were married on June 12, 1994, in Ohio, and then had a second ceremony, at San Ysidro Ranch, in California. He lived in Indian Hill, Ohio.

Armstrong is generally referred to as a "reluctant" American Hero. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, recalled Armstrong’s legendary humility. “He didn’t feel that he should be out huckstering himself,” the former Ohio senator told CNN. “He was a humble person, and that’s the way he remained after his lunar flight, as well as before.”

After 1994, Armstrong refused all requests for autographs because he found that his signed items were selling for large amounts of money and that many forgeries were in circulation; any requests that were sent to him received a form letter in reply, saying that he had stopped signing. Although his no-autograph policy was well known, author Andrew Smith observed people at the 2002 Reno Air Races still trying to get signatures, with one person even claiming, "If you shove something close enough in front of his face, he'll sign." He also stopped sending out congratulatory letters to new Eagle Scouts, because he believed these letters should come from people who know the Scouts personally.

Use of Armstrong's name, image, and famous quote caused him problems over the years. MTV wanted to use his quote for its now-famous identity depicting the Apollo 11 landing when it launched in 1981, but he declined. Armstrong sued Hallmark Cards in 1994 after they used his name and a recording of "one small step" quote in a Christmas ornament without permission. The lawsuit was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money which Armstrong donated to Purdue.

In May 2005, Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal battle with his barber of 20 years, Marx Sizemore. After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission. Armstrong threatened legal action unless the barber returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to get the hair back, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice.

Since the early 1980s, Armstrong has been the subject of a hoax saying that he converted to Islam after hearing the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, while walking on the moon. The Indonesian singer Suhaemi wrote a song called "Gema Suara Adzan di Bulan" ("The Resonant Sound of the Call to Prayer on the Moon") which described Armstrong's conversion; the song was discussed widely in various Jakarta news outlets in 1983. Other similar hoax stories were seen in Egypt and Malaysia. In March 1983, the U.S. State Department responded by issuing a global message to Muslims saying that Armstrong "has not converted to Islam". However, the hoax was not completely quieted; it surfaced occasionally for the next three decades. A part of the confusion stems from the similarity between Armstrong's American residence in Lebanon, Ohio, and the country Lebanon which has a majority population of Muslims.