by Patty Dann
When did you first realize that Harry Haskell had gone from being a friend from college to a gentleman caller? Was it when I put rosewater on my wrists, and you had a sneezing fit? You said, “Lord have mercy on my wanton sister!” I assumed you were just teasing. The rosewater had been a gift from Harry. Of course, the Reverend would not have approved. “Ornamentation leads to temptation, and the tempted shall be punished”—how many times did he tell us that? “There is no need to embellish for one’s own glory.”
It seems I shall rot in hell. But perhaps you will join me there, although I do not think there are many places to park a flying machine.
I sometimes even wear a lipstick called “Raspberry Splash,” a color the young girl at the pharmacy chose for me, although I tend to lick it off. Here, look at the marks on the bottom of the page where I’ve kissed it—I am showing you the color, nothing more, although I have become more affectionate. I would not mind giving you a hug. I think I’m mainly a tomboy, don’t you? I look like a clown with lipstick, but at my age a little color on my face helps. The young salesgirl at the dress shop that sells flapper dresses said, “Are you looking for something for your daughter, or perhaps your granddaughter?” Sigh.
I think I can say with certainty that the Reverend approved of nothing I did but homemaking. But on my grave, be sure to put that I organized the women’s march in Dayton in 1914.
Those things you did not object to. Nor the Reverend. How strange he believed women should get an education and was for the women’s vote when many men were not, but then told me not to marry. When I got engaged the first time, at Oberlin, Father did not speak to me for three weeks. And when I ended the relationship, which I always said was my “narrow escape,” he said, “I suppose you would not have made a good wife anyway.” Although I was stung by his words, I also felt a bolt of freedom, as if I’d been shot out of a cannon at the county fair.
I would have preferred to be like Julia Morgan, the first woman architect in California, although I believe she never wed. To design buildings I know is not like designing aeroplanes, but I have faith I could do it. I continue to write my ideas in notebooks, which I would love to show you. My latest idea is for a footbridge across Kansas City, one that swings, that will make the Hannibal Bridge seem old-fashioned. I think you will like it. I have enclosed my drawings. Along the bridge, there would be places to sit and even cafés, like in Paris, and stands for bicycles, but all above the city, so it won’t interfere with the automobile traffic below, and you would need to wear special ropes to attach you to the bridge—because of the wind, of course. I’ve called it the Wright Bridge—do you like it? But no automobiles or trains or even aeroplanes! And we could serve snow ice cream. Yes, the snow could be brought down from Canada, in freezing containers. Just add cream and sugar the way we did in heavy snows as children, and even colors—blue snow, blue made from crushed pansy petals, could be served at the landing stations. What do you say, Orv, blue ice cream?
I often imagine what my life would be like if I had been born a boy, if there had been five Wright brothers instead of four. I would have been Cyril, that’s what Mother told me, instead of Katharine.
Perhaps the Reverend sent me to Oberlin so he could give me the illusion of being a modern woman, when in fact I was an educated servant to him. I did rise up in the company. But that was for those outside the home. The other day Harry said preachers can be the most dangerous people in society.
“Hitch yourself to a star and you remain a wagon,” the Reverend used to say, from behind his newspaper. Of course, you and Wilbur were stars. You know that. The world knows that. At various times as a child I wanted to be an anthropologist or an actress or even an American Joan of Arc. I dreamed. I dreamed as much as you boys.
The Reverend said, “Loss is the Lord’s way of teaching us virtue and strength,” but I disagree. When I graduated from Oberlin College in ’98 and took that position at Steele High School, of course, as is still their policy, they did not allow us women teachers to be married. Thank heavens Carrie stayed with us all those years. She says you are still not eating well and spend hour upon hour with your bird books. I hear she has to lure you to the dinner table as if you were a small child. She could tell the world what went on in our house. She remembers it all.
Humbly,
Katharine Wright Haskell
P.S. Our brother Lorin said he visited you and you definitely had lost weight. He said that not only would you not speak to me but that you refused to talk about me. Is this true?
September 29, 1927
Dear brother,
Do you have those letters I constantly wrote to you, when you boys began spending time away from home out in North Carolina on the beach and later in Europe? I thought I could reach across the country, and then the Atlantic Ocean, to hold your hand and give you all the news about our Dayton life. Are those letters still organized chronologically? I apologize if I sometimes scolded you when you didn’t regularly correspond. I know I could be such a schoolmarm, warning you of “distractions” when in Europe. I know I still am. I think I should have encouraged you to be more distracted. We never spoke of things of a personal nature during those days of constant writing and talking, in that remarkable time when we convinced the U.S. Signal Corps to allow you to test the Flyer. Orv, I think it was right you were the pilot for the demonstrations, but honestly, I wish it had been me who had flown that historic day. You know I have the ability to be a good aviator. I just need some lessons. You know it’s in our Wright blood.
I believe that in future generations they will think of going up as common as riding a horse. As I look out the window and see yet another young man barely walking with a crutch, I think of how dangerous your life has been, even without having gone to war. After that one week of breaking all those records with the flights, I had premonitions. I was not entirely surprised when I got the telegram. I have it with me. September 17, 1908. When the propeller broke and sent the aeroplane out of control . . . Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge’s death is a nightmare I continue to have. I liked Thomas. We all did. I tried to prepare myself for such an event, but I was not prepared. I thought I would die myself. I would have gladly given up my life for his and not to have you injured so violently.
I must hurry to the post office to mail this. I will write tomorrow.
In haste,
K.
P.S. I will post this tomorrow because there is suddenly a rainstorm. The silver maple leaves are pressed up flat against the screen, giving off the most beautiful scent.
September 30, 1927
KATHARINE WRIGHT SHOOTS MAID
I was talking to Mrs. Crossbottom about Will, which I should not do. I should not confide a single thought to that woman. When I said we believe dearest Will died of eating oysters, she asked what month he died. First of all, I don’t think that is the proper response when you are speaking about a loved one’s death. Wouldn’t “I’m so sorry about your loss” or a shake of the head with a sorrowful face be more appropriate? But when I said, “May 30, 1912,” the horrid woman said, “I did not ask the day or the year, simply the month. Everyone knows the danger of eating oysters in a month without the letter R in it. Everyone knows that.”
I wish I could have fired her on the spot, but I cannot. I wish I could have thrown a vase of flowers at her, a violent and wild smashing. Was she accusing me of killing Will? Or that he died from his own stupidity? One thing Will was not was stupid. Nor am I.
I do many things to keep my hands from being idle here. I still love sweeping and raking, to soothe my muddled brain. One of my favorite things at home was to be out in the yard while the boys were working on their contraptions. And because of the boys I have indoor-outdoor thermometers in the windows, very similar to the nifty ones they fashioned when they were young. And then I have brought with me a few of the drawings of my inventions as well.
Last night, as I sat in the study with the atlas, I thought of the wretched boy who hit Will with his h
ockey stick out on the frozen pond. I wonder what makes a boy do that and for him to become a murderer, a real murderer, and our boys to go forward to change the course of history. One never knows the power of human character. But Orv’s brilliance does not justify his abandoning me. It feels like a murder to my soul.
The Reverend always said that we Wrights had an obligation to society but also to family. He once suggested we sign an “oath of allegiance to the family,” although that was one of the threats he did not follow through on. Orv used to say, “Batten down the hatches, sister,” if I worried too much, but I think the man should seriously batten down his own hatches at this point.
Later on September 30, 1927
CENSORED
I never saw Orv sneak a kiss with a woman behind the stairs. I never came upon him holding hands strolling down the street. Nor did I ever hear him say, “That woman has lovely gams,” or anything of that sort. I should add this was the same for Will. Once the boys and I were walking along the Seine in Paris, and suddenly a man who claimed he was a journalist, although he looked more like some kind of a street performer with a striped shirt and beret, walked up behind us and said in my ear, “Vos frères préfèrent-ils les hommes?”
I don’t know if the boys heard, and their French was minimal at best, but I understood completely what he said. I was so shocked I said back to the man, “Les hommes?” and shook my head, and he vanished. I admit I was startled. But then again, if hommes prefer hommes, c’est la vie.
The day Mother died, I felt a darkening net thrown over me. I could see out of the net, but a net I could not escape from, as if I had stepped into a new and peculiar garment of adulthood. Although I acted outwardly with strength, part of my spirit was smashed, and it was not until the moment Harry kissed me through the screen door on the porch that I felt completely whole. “Whole” is not the proper word. More as if my wings were aligned. Yes, I felt aligned.
I wish Orv and Will could have experienced that. Orv still has time!
October 1, 1927
My dear mute brother,
This is a continuation from September 29’s letter—so now I am mailing two on the same day. This morning I had to go to an appointment to have my eyes examined. I say “had to,” but I must say I love the feel of having someone touch my forehead and around my eyes. The optician is a most gentle man, with the most sensual (do you mind I use that word? I have been reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace and I find that his words are sensual) hands. And when the optician asks about you, I answer as if we were in constant communication. In fact, I lied and said we spoke daily on the telephone, right before dinner, to share every detail of our days. As I left his shop today, the little bell above the door rang and he said, “When you speak to Mr. Wright today, please tell him that he is my hero, even more than Charles Lindbergh.” I smiled sweetly and said, “Of course, certainly, I will telephone him as soon as I return home.”
And last time he asked how much I had helped with our flying machine, and I just smiled. I do have memories of being no more than five years old, as usual with Mother hanging clothes, clothespins in her mouth. I would stand clinging to her skirts, looking up at a lone hawk or a flock of jays, already watching their wings, trying to figure out how they stayed up there. But if it is attention I want, I was born in the wrong body. There are times I have not spoken up in my life, and for that I am forever sorry.
My friend Lucy, who died so young, just a year after graduation when she was “thrown from a horse,” had confided in me months before that her husband used to beat her about the face with a wooden spoon and more. When I saw her bruised eye, she said I must never breathe a word. She did not use that word, “beat,” that time. She said something else, which was more demure. She could not bring herself to say out loud all that he actually had done to her. All she whispered into my ear was “He took his hand to me.”
I asked her a few more questions, but she sat there with a bowed head, like a nun, as if she had struck him instead of the other way around.
I fault myself for not breathing a word. I know she was not thrown from a horse.
I vow to become more honest at this stage of my life.
Speaking of honesty, one of Harry’s colleagues at the office came for dinner last night. He has never married. He was most flirtatious, but not in a way that bothers Harry, saying that I added “sparkle” to the house; it just makes me feel less freakish in this place. He makes me feel it is normal to marry at fifty-two, but he would make you feel that it is just as normal not to marry. He is a modern man. I do not know whether he has girlfriends or prefers men. Last night he asked me if I agreed with Freud that what one sees in childhood leaves stains for the rest of your life. I was surprised at that word, but that’s what he said. Stains. Perhaps we should all speak up about such stains. There are things we need to talk about, Orv.
Yours,
Sister
October 3, 1927
INDECENT WIFE
It still feels like summer even though it is October, and I am sitting naked in the bathtub at 3:00 a.m. I can’t stop thinking about Reuchlin. He often reminds me of a copy of a painting I have seen of the Brontë sisters with their brother, Branwell, just a faint image, almost floating away. Reuchlin seemed to have fallen from another family tree. He did not get along with the Reverend and cared not a whit about aeroplanes. It’s possible the Reverend screamed most at Reuchlin, but Reuchlin was not cowed. The morning the Reverend found a book lying open, upside down, on the kitchen table, instead of primly closed with a bookmark, he screamed, “A book spread like that is indecent, Reuchlin!” and took the ruler to him. Soon after I heard Reuchlin mutter, “‘Decency’ is not a word that man knows much about.”
I believe Reuchlin was lucky to get out and marry and have four children, although the rest of us did not know what to make of his Lulu. Reuchlin might not have had an interest in flying machines, but he had a normal life. I like to think Reuchlin would have approved of our marriage and he and Mother would be appalled by Orv’s behavior. I had worried over what to wear to her funeral, knowing I had to wear black even though it was high summer, in that Ohio heat. I wore a shawl of Mother’s I found in the back of her closet, perhaps as a shield.
In the carriage after the service, the Reverend grabbed my arm so hard I feared he would break my wrist if I resisted. My mind might be confused about other things, but I know his exact words were “You are Mother now, Katharine Wright. You are our Mother now.”
I know if he were alive today, he would have insisted that I should stay and care for him and Orv. Would I have the courage to contradict his will?
I am constantly startled by people’s interpretations of the love between Harry and me, which is quite simply and wonderfully love. I do not think people would have whispered at any age if Orv had found his true love. Wilbur used to call Orville “Bubs” and Orville called Wilbur “Ullam.” Once I made the grave error of calling for Bubs and Ullam to come to the dining table. Monsieur Ullam (Wilbur) just laughed it off, but Monsieur Bubs (Orville) came up behind me and pulled on my ear so hard it stung for a week.
Today I was at the library and the librarian seemed a nice enough woman. We chatted about which Brontë we preferred (I, of course, voted for Charlotte, and she claimed Emily), and I had the thought that this would be a fine place to spend several hours a week, but after I had checked out two French novels, I saw her whispering behind her hand to another woman. I heard the word “improper.” I do have excellent ears. I wish the librarian could see me now, naked in the tub. My nakedness is not something I’ve ever been proud of or ever really experienced before now. Before Kansas City, I would get dressed immediately when I woke, hurry to cover myself and that was that. Looking glasses were not featured in our home. Honestly, I never looked at myself naked in a full-length mirror until I met Harry. Here there is a full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door.
And my breasts, which have never nursed a baby, now give me so much pleasure. Th
ere never was a mention of my face or shape in the newspapers, or what style of dress I wore in any publication in any country in the world.
In every language on this fair planet, the boys were known as the Wright brothers, “Les frères Wright!” as the French liked to announce, whenever we appeared in public or they were written about in the French papers. But few people could remember which was which or who was who. My breasts were certainly nobody’s concern.
Before I was married, I copied out my new name, Katharine (Katharine with an a) Wright Haskell, on a notebook up at the lake, and after the smashing of the vase, I found that sheet of paper, torn into tiny bits in the wastebasket.
I admit that as jubilantly in love as I am, this move has made my mind askew. As Mother said faintly, as she was losing her wits before she died that dreadful day in 1889, “How many years ago was this?” At first I did not understand what she was saying. I put my ear closer to her lips as she lay upstairs at 7 Hawthorn. “How many years ago was this?” she murmured.
She was speaking of the moment, in the present tense, as she was leaving us and the earthly world behind, but in fact, what does time matter?
Time matters when the milk goes sour. I must tell Mrs. Crossbottom we need to order fewer bottles from the milkman.