Finding Lost Voices: One Flight Hides Another, the life of Katherine Wright 1874 - 1929
A weekly email that brings back the voices of those who have been forgotten or misremembered.
I was in sixth grade when I first realized I wanted to be a writer. My class was on a field trip at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, CA, and it was at that park, I learned about the writer Jack London. He was the first person I encountered who made his living writing. Before that day, I had spent most of my class periods at school writing stories in my journal instead of paying attention. But because I’d never met a writer, I didn’t know that writing was something I could do with my life. That life hid behind all I had been told I could be.
After visiting the park, I had a name for what I wanted to be, and because he had unlocked that future for me, Jack London became a role model. I devoured everything he’d written. But I especially fell in love with his novel, The Valley of the Moon, because of how well he wrote from the point of view of a woman. The book is about a woman named Saxon who leads her husband, a prizefighter named Billy, on a quest to find the perfect home. Little did I know then that Saxon was so well written because Jack London’s wife, Charmian Kittredge London, had helped him write that character. In the 1980s, when I visited the park on my field trip, little was said about Jack London’s wife.
It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that Charmian was also a writer and that she had helped write many of Jack’s famous novels. When we were on the tour of the House of Happy Walls, looking at the displays of artifacts—Jack’s typewriter and books—another life was hiding behind them.
Years later, while teaching writing at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York, I discovered a poem by Kenneth Koch that’s stuck with me ever since: “One Train May Hide Another.” In it, he writes:
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there.
Charmian was always at the park, standing in the shadow of Jack London and peeking from the tiny peephole on the staircase or shuffling up the hidden staircase. I just hadn’t seen her. When I did finally see her, it changed my life. I wrote a book about her (Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer), and I began the work I am doing now to bring back the stories of women whose contributions have somehow been forgotten.
I’m in North Carolina's Outer Banks this week, and I wanted to highlight a woman whose story interacted with this place. So, this week’s post is about Katherine Wright (1874 - 1929). Katherine’s brothers were Oroville and Wilbur Wright (AKA the famous Wright Brothers), and she was not just a sister but an integral part of their work. But, like Charmian Kittredge London, its likely you have never heard about her. Her life has been hidden by the lives of her brothers. She is rarely mentioned in history books, and it's time her significant contributions are brought to light.
Behind the looming dunes at Kittyhawk, NC, another story is hiding. Katherine (Kate) Wright was born in 1874, the youngest of the Wright children and the only girl to survive. She was closest to her two older brothers, Wilbur and Oroville. When she was fifteen years old, her mother died from tuberculosis, leaving her grief-stricken and with the responsibility of running their household. Despite these challenges, she attended Oberlin College, one of the first colleges in the United States to admit women, and later became a school teacher at Steele High School, where she taught Latin.
During her tenure as a teacher, she still lived at home at 7 Hawthorn Street, in Dayton, Ohio, with Oroville (Orv) and Wilbur (Will), who were well on their way towards developing their breakthrough design, the 1902 Wright Glider. As they prepared their prototype to take to Kitty Hawk, NC, Kate said, "The flying machine is in the process of making now. Will spins the sewing machine around by the hour while Orv squats around, marking the places to sew. There is no place in the house to live, but I'll be lonesome enough by this time next week and wish that I could have some of their racket around." Indeed, the three were inseparable, and the brothers relied heavily on their sister for her support. While they were both introverts, she was outgoing and she became an integral part of how they would transition from inventors to sellers of the designs they’d developed after they had successfully flown their glider. In essence, Kate became their sales executive.
In 1908, Wilbur was involved in a serious accident while demonstrating their plane at Fort Meyer. Lt. Thomas Selfridge of the US Army, the passenger Wilbur was flying, was killed, and Wilbur was left severely injured. Within two hours of receiving word of her brother’s accident, Kate left her teaching position and rushed to her brother’s side. She took over all of the details he could not deal with — the investigation regarding the accident. She negotiated the impact the accident would have on their ability to make sales. Meanwhile, she also nursed her brother back to health. The experience made the brothers realize that if they wished to succeed, they needed their sister to become officially a part of their team. They asked her to take a leave from teaching so that they could hire her.
Wilbur and Kate took an ocean liner across the Atlantic to meet Oroville who was already in France. The three traveled to Pau, in the South of France, to set up a demonstration site. There, Kate would spend her days winning over potential buyers and flying in the aircraft, becoming the third woman to do so (the first two were Teresa Peltier and Edith Berg). To fly safely, Kate had to tie a rope around the bottom of her skirt.
Kate would never return to teaching. Instead, she would devote herself to promoting her brothers’ business. It’s likely that without their sister's collaboration, the Wright Brothers would not have achieved what they could. Let’s not let their lives hide hers from our view.
When you come to a museum, stop and look around. There may be lives there you can’t see. What would have happened so many years ago when I visited Jack London State Park in Glen Ellen if Charmian’s life had not been obscured by her husband’s? If, instead, my sixth-grade self had seen her straight on, in the full light as the writer that she was? Perhaps the path I am walking on now would not have been found. Or maybe, I would have been empowered to become who I am today faster?
Events
July 27 1 - 3 PM PST - Poets in Parks featuring Jan Beatty, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Forrest Gander, Dana Gioia, Brian Martens, and Katie Peterson
Armstrong Redwoods Forest Theater
17000 Armstrong Woods Road
GUERNEVILLE, CA 95446
Life! Thanks so much, Iris.
Another very interesting and important