The Brothers Who Taught The World How to Fly

The first, this is a story about perseverance. The second, it’s about the spirit of a family where love, trust, and encouragement was planted, grew and flourished.

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, began their dream that ‘man can fly’ in their home in Dayton, Ohio, in 1896.

At that time, Orville, 25, was struck by the dreaded typhoid, for days he lay in a delirium, close to death. It was a month before he could sit up in bed. His brother, Wilbur, 29, reading a book for Orville about German glider enthusiast Otto Lilienthal who had recently been killed in an accident. Lilienthal had been doing his aviation experiment by taking lesson from the birds. He died after crashed several times of which the last caused him a broken spine.

Apparently, the book about Lilienthal failure triggered Wilbur and Orville’s mind to do experiment based on the lesson-learned. “The works of Lilienthal had ‘infected’ us with the unquenchable enthusiasm and transformed idle curiosity into the active zeal of workers,” said Wilbur and Orville.

Their father, Bishop Milton Wright always showed his support. He was a lifelong lover of books. He had family book collection and encouraged his children to love reading books from the very early ages. He put education as the first priority. However, between formal education at school and informal education at home, it would seem he put more value on the latter. If one or the other of them chose to miss a school day for some project or interest he thought worthy, it was all right. And certainly he ranked reading as worthy.

Their mother, Susan Koerner, was highly intelligent, affectionate, and most understanding woman. “She recognized something unusual in Will and Orv, though she loved us all. She never would destroy one thing the boys were trying to make. Any little thing they left around in her way she picked up and put on a shelf in the kitchen,” said Katharine - the youngest in the family - who was then playing a very important role for her brothers to achieve success.

“If I were giving a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother,” said Wilbur years after he succeed as the inventor of the aviation.

It took around 12 years for the Wright brothers (+sister) to make the dream come true after the endeavors, struggles, a lot of mockery, and couple times of accidents. It was Le Mans, France, which became a witness when Wilbur & Orville demonstrated how to fly in front of many important people including princess, millionaires and prominent politicians from Europe.

After leaving France, upon arrival to the United States, the US President, William Howard Taft formally presented two Gold Medals to the Wright Brothers.

But that was not the ultimate achievement of them. The happiest moment for them was actually when they arrived at their family home, went to Huffman Prairie to show off how they can fly. At the moment, their father, Bishop Wright – then 82 years old - took the flight with Orville. They took off, soaring over Huffman Prairie at about 350 feet for a good six minutes, during which the father’s only words were, “Higher, Orville, higher!”

The book written by David McCullough, a two times winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The story is alive in the hand of McCullough since he wrote with a very detail pieces derived from a lot of sources including Wright’s personal diaries, notebooks, and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence.

***

Serpong, 22 May 2021

Titus J.