BOYNTON BEACH — George Palmer Putnam Jr., the retired businessman who fielded questions to the end of his days about the fate of his stepmother, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, has died at 92.

Putnam died Saturday afternoon at his home, according to Joe Crankshaw, his son-in-law and a longtime Treasure Coast newspaper columnist.

Taylor Jones George Palmer Putnam Jr., the lost aviator Amelia Earhrat’s stepson, died Saturday at age 92. He lived in Boynton Beach for more than 30 years in a home near Woolbright Road and Interstate 95.

Year after year, reporters descended on Putnam’s living room, cluttered with books, newspapers and family photographs, to ask his reaction to yet another new breathless assertion that someone was that much closer to solving one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century: Earhart’s disappearance over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937, as she tried to become the first person to fly around the world.

“There’s been a lot,” Putnam said on July 24, 2012, on what would have been his stepmother’s 115th birthday. “Nobody’s coming up with anything yet.”

Putnam said in 2012 he’d still like to learn what happened in his lifetime: “It would be nice.”

Taylor Jones A young George Putnam, now of Boynton Beach , around age 10, stands with his stepmother, the lost aviator Amelia Earhart.

But over the years, he said, his position hasn’t changed.

“The simple thing is I think they just ran out of gas and fell into the ocean,” in thousands of feet of water, where the plane sank to the bottom or was carried away by currents, Putnam said.

George Jr. suffered from polio as a child and his mother, the first wife of publishing giant George P. Putnam, had brought him to Florida at age 9. He never left.

He was a Navy veteran of World War II, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He took part in the Invasion of North Africa and the Battle of the Philippine Sea. He survived the torpedoing of his ship, and he was there when Gen. Douglas MacArthur made his triumphant return to the Philippines.

He was a director of Binney & Smith, the maker of Crayola crayons, founded by his grandfather on his mother’s side. He also was in the construction and citrus business and had long been a conservationist.

He married his third wife, Marie, about four decades ago. Soon after that, the couple moved from the Fort Pierce area to their two-story home near Interstate 95 and Woolbright Road.

Putnam’s dad had married Amelia, about 10 years his junior, in February 1931. The young Putnam was 11. He would fly more than once with the queen of aviation.

“I always liked her very much,” Putnam said. “She was a great role model. She took a position there were many things a woman could do as good as a man.”

The day Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan left the United States from an airstrip near Miami on June 1, 1937, George, then 16, was in Fort Pierce. His father was in California.

Earhart, three weeks shy of her 40th birthday, and Noonan, a newlywed, were last heard from as they approached Howland Island, a 0.6-square-mile piece of rock about halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

Over the next several weeks, the U.S. Navy searched 250,000 square miles of ocean without luck. At $4 million, it was, at that time, the costliest and most intensive air and sea search in history.

George Sr. took his wife’s disappearance hard and spent a fortune himself searching for her. He died in 1950 at 63.

In March 2012, investigators said they found what might be the aircraft’s landing gear protruding from waters off a remote island of Nikumaroro.

“Until something has been found that can be definitely interpreted as part of her plane, it’s (the search) still going to continue,” Putnam said at the time. “It’s still a big mystery.”

George Putnam, Jr., is survived by his wife Marie and children Cynthia Putnam Crankshaw of Stuart, Dorothy Roth of Fallbrook, Calif,; Richard Putnam of Port St. Lucie; Susan Smith of Orlando and Steve Kutzer of Jupiter; as well as 10 grandchildren and and 11 great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his eldest son, George.

Services are 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church on South Seacrest Boulevard. Memorial donations may be made to St. Joseph;s.