The Wright Sister

by Patty Dann

  Sincerely,

  K.H.

  August 10, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  Something has happened. I hesitate to tell you though. Last week I met Gertrude Caroline Ederle, yes, the first woman to swim the Channel. I almost expected her to be wearing a bathing costume and covered in Vaseline, but there she was at a Rotary meeting wearing a summer dress and sensible shoes.

  She is shy and a bit deaf, which I’d wrongly assumed came from all that swimming. I felt instantly at ease with her, a woman not quite comfortable with fame. I even teased her and called her “Queen of the Waves,” as they refer to her in the papers. Not long after we met, she took both my hands in hers—and hers are quite rough, certainly not from flower arranging—and said, “Come swim with me sometime, won’t you?” Perhaps she says that to everyone when she greets them, but it put a smile on my face, a much-needed smile.

  But that is not why I am writing to you. I am writing to you because you are my best friend, my confidant. If I mail this before I finish, I shall continue tomorrow.

  Yesterday morning, after Harry left for the office, the doorbell rang. I did not have any appointments. I was upstairs reading. I often read upstairs, to have peace and quiet away from our Mrs. Crossbottom. I’m reading a most interesting book about Gertrude, which Harry kindly brought home from the office. In any event, the doorbell interrupted me; I believe I was reading about how Gertrude had measles when she was a child and that was why she was deaf, not from the swimming, although I still think the miles of cold water didn’t help. The doorbell rang again. I put down my book and went to see who was there.

  The postman had left a postcard from Rochelle. It was a photograph of the Hannibal Bridge. When I turned the card over, I read, I need money now!! Immediately. For Psalm, in enormous and messy penmanship. I am at a loss as to what to do.

  I have some money in a savings account, which I am happy to give her, but I am distressed to think of what she needs it for.

  Your sister,

  Katharine

  August 15, 1928

  ISLAND ROMANCE

  I cannot stop thinking about that summer afternoon up at the lake, when suddenly Harry was on the porch steps, and I was inside. It was a magnificent Canadian day, with the pinesap wind blowing in from the Arctic. Orv always said had he been to the island before he flew, he might never have left the ground. Harry had been staying with us for a few days. He had always been a talky man, even as a boy at Oberlin, but perhaps more so during these walks. Grief is an unpredictable visitor and can make one mentally ill, I believe. So the three of us took walks at dawn and at the end of the day to watch the sunset, and on two days even after lunch. There was a restless quality to the conversations.

  I believe the atmosphere was what we used to call “full of churn” when we were talking about the wind. But it was not wind that was causing the churn.

  Harry did not talk about Isabel. And neither Orville nor I brought her up. I must add that Orville rarely initiated conversation at all, so it would have been me, but it didn’t seem natural to do so. Instead, we talked of the events of the day, about President Coolidge, and the plans to carve giant likenesses of the presidents on Mount Rushmore. Looking back, it was not just the restlessness I recall, but it was clear even then it was not a completely peaceful trio, because I would stand between the men at the start of the walk, and as we continued Orv kept moving to get between Harry and me, the way the ducks nudge one another on the lake. Harry once asked if it was possible Orv felt abandoned by him, that it was their lost bond that he was so miffed about. It’s possible, but Orv also did things like that. He liked to stand or walk where he wanted to be, and he might even quietly push someone out of his way if he was not pleased with the “configuration,” as he used to explain if anyone questioned him, although few people ever did.

  August 16, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  I dearly miss the lake at this time, and the fireflies, as I miss you and Mother, all in one great and sorrowful cloud of yearning. I am recalling when you were ten years old and I was seven and you would wander into my room in the middle of the night because you couldn’t sleep.

  “Tell me something to dream about, sister,” you would say, sitting on my bed.

  Never mind that you woke me up from a deep sleep or that I was ashamed for you to see me in my bedclothes.

  I would let you sit there, and I would stroke your hand as I listed lemon meringue pie, strawberry-rhubarb pie, carrot cake with walnuts, banana pudding, and all your favorite desserts, including each of the ingredients and their precise amounts, and you would calm down. Occasionally you would call out if I missed one tiny detail: “How much vanilla?” or “How many times do you stir that?”

  If that wasn’t enough, I’d tell you stories about Mother singing to us as she sewed and making us memorize the presidents as we sat on the floor by her machine. And you’d mumble in your half sleep, “Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce.” And if still that wasn’t enough, I’d quietly sing you “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Finally, you would say to me, “What on earth am I doing here, sister?” and I’d lead you back to your bed, tucking you in quietly so as not to wake Will.

  Does all that attention to you mean nothing?

  I am sorry to say I don’t have memories of the Reverend teaching anything but Scripture. Or some kind of admonition, as in “make haste slowly,” when he felt I was not being attentive enough with my chores, particularly washing dishes for all of you if Carrie wasn’t there. I detest washing dishes, if anyone is interested in knowing. I think we missed our calling with the aeroplane business. I do think an electric dishwasher would have been the way to go, and certainly the way to my heart! I’ve heard the Germans are working on it, but not soon enough in my book. “Step right up, folks, and see the amazing Wright brothers and sister and their dishwashing machine!” You have never explained properly why you think it’s acceptable not to rinse dishes after they’ve been washed. How many times I rinsed them off after you set them soapy in the drainer! But you are an excellent dish drier, I shall give you that.

  I wonder what would have happened if I’d married my college sweetheart. I dread to think. I thought I loved him briefly, the way he would leap up when I entered the room, and he did have a pleasant-enough smile, but then I could never have been a teacher because, of course, teachers were not allowed to marry. I would never have traveled with you boys to Europe for all the flying demonstrations. Perhaps I would have a child, though I might never have tasted champagne along the Seine. Yes, I would never have my Harry. My life would not have been my life.

  Yours truly,

  Sister

  P.S. Last night when I couldn’t sleep, I tried to remember everything about when we were in France, and what came to mind was that little town where everyone, men and women, was buying a sweet perfume from a large glass container at the grocery store. Everyone stood there with their own bottles. I loved that and still have the little bottle of the stuff you bought for me. We did not come prepared with a bottle, but they had small ones for sale. In my haste I left it on my dresser at home. I hope you have not dumped the contents or, worse, smashed it against the wall. Carrie has made no mention of it, but she says you wander into my room at strange hours.

  August 21, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  Harry is downtown, and I am listening to the phonograph, to one of our Irving Berlin records. I think I shall wear this one out, which would not please Harry. I believe Irving Berlin is a genius the way he talks about blue skies smiling, although I imagine he has his quirks as well. I think all you brilliant boys do!

  I never told the press, after all their pestering, and not even Harry, about all your quirks. I never told anyone about how you counted all your steps each day and how you insisted not only that I keep everything in the pantry alphabetized, but if there were two identical tins, let’s say of green beans, I would have to place them precisely on top of each other, o
r how once you screamed at me because the tin of sugar was to the right of the jar of tomato sauce I’d canned. How could I have been so foolish to put T before S? I have never told people all that.

  Yours,

  Sister

  P.S. Do you think I should bob my hair?

  August 30, 1928

  Dear childish man,

  Are you up at the lake? It is horridly hot here in Kansas City and the ceiling fan is not enough. I tie my hair up or pile it on top of my head, and in some ways, I think my neck would be even hotter with short hair.

  You must know that when you sent that first telegram from Kitty Hawk and said you’d be home for Christmas and that you’d been fifty-seven seconds up in the air, I believed it, even if others doubted, including that man who said fifty-seven minutes would have been more impressive. The Reverend held up the telegram like a flag. I think you should know he was truly proud of you boys, although I know he did not express it to you. I also want to add that though I was not with you on the sands physically, I was with you spiritually at Kitty Hawk, more than you will ever know.

  Lovingly,

  Your sister

  August 30, 1928

  VIVID, JOYOUS, BRAVE

  I did something bold today in this prickly heat. I drove to the cemetery, with my bare legs sticking to the seat—no stockings, just a cotton dress and underwear—to Mount Washington Cemetery, where Isabel is buried. Yes, I went to her grave. I had not been acting well. I had become unhinged. I had to go. I have not told Harry, but I know in my heart that I still care for Isabel as I always did, as a friend, and that it is a gift she has given me to have this time with Harry now. I wept when I read what Harry had written on her stone. VIVID, JOYOUS, BRAVE. I saw Harry’s flowers, the impatiens he had planted, and they were wilting. I asked the groundskeeper for a watering can, and he filled it up and I watered those flowers, and they lifted their heads almost immediately.

  I whispered to Isabel, “I am glad you got to vote, but sorry you did not get to vote more. I am sorry I have now taken your bed.”

  I must always remember what Harry had written on her stone. Vivid. Joyous. Brave. I must learn from Isabel. In my weak times I will learn from her.

  August 31, 1928

  Dear Orv, Orv dear,

  Harry went to meet with the husband of a woman who was lynched. I am saying this: a woman was lynched.

  When he came back and we sat at the dining room table, he did not say a word during our whole evening meal. He did not look me in the eye. And then he pushed away his dessert and slid his chair hard from the table. As he left the room he muttered, “I think we need another Civil War.”

  Sister Katharine

  Labor Day 1928

  Dear Orv,

  Will you be back from the lake soon? Who is trimming your mustache these days? The first time you asked me to do your “ablutions,” as you called it, you demanded, rather than asked: “Sister, help with my ablutions.” You spoke, as I used to teach my students, in the imperative case. I was scared to hold the razor and scissors so close to your face, and it did not help that you were so particular . . . that never helped.

  Once you said, “Don’t worry, sister, if your hand slips, you know where my goggles are, you can steer the plane!”

  And that was when we were sitting in the backyard on a hot Ohio day, with the laundry flying like sails before us.

  Your devoted sister

  P.S. I think you are one tough customer—that’s an expression Harry uses, and I think it applies well to you.

  September 9, 1928

  Dear brother,

  This is a list of what I would like you to bring me or send me from the big house.

  Two drawings of seagulls, the ones you did at Kitty Hawk.

  One photo of you and Will and me, the three of us in France, the one in front of the Eiffel Tower (not the one where your eyes are closed and not the one where you look like you swallowed some salty sardines).

  One box of clippings of you boys, and while you’re at it there’s one box specifically from France, when we visited the vineyard—with the picture of the women stomping grapes and you looking like you would faint.

  The sheet music I left on the piano from when I tried to sing Irving Berlin to you to coax you into talking to me—the day you pushed me off the piano bench.

  The two summer straw hats I take to the lake, perhaps there are three. Please leave one up at the lake.

  The hatbox with Mother’s braid in it, which is on the top shelf of my bedroom closet.

  My measuring cups. But ask Carrie first. If she insists she needs them, she is welcome to them. I do not want to cause more trouble.

  The mixing bowl with the faded flowers that was Mother’s. This one I long for when I make lemon bread.

  The little bottle of perfume from France that is on my bureau.

  You.

  I can see you reading this letter by the fire, and I hope you don’t just toss it into the flames!

  I am at my breaking point. I don’t know if you know that expression, but I am not referring to pencils.

  Your sister

  P.S. I am thinking of that night when it felt like we both shouted at once, “Wing warping! Wing warping!” and you and Will ran out of the house without your coats in the cold, like troubled children, flapping your arms.

  P.P.S. I also keep thinking about Gertrude Ederle. I realize she became the first woman to swim the English Channel the same year I got married. In some ways I think marriage is as daunting as the English Channel. Maybe I should have attempted to do that rather than to marry. Maybe it would have been easier, and more people would have cheered! I would have covered myself in sheep grease, olive oil, and Vaseline, as she did. I’d have to purchase the sheep grease, but otherwise I’m ready to go.

  I long to swim in the cold lake one more time—no, not one more time, many more times.

  September 12, 1928

  LOST, NOW FOUND

  This is the second time I am in the bathtub today. This afternoon I took a hot bath to clean off all the dust from my expedition. And now at 3:00 a.m. I am sitting in the empty and dry bathtub wearing my dressing gown and wool socks. I am in a trance. Each day Harry has left for the paper downtown, I have so often felt at a loss, like I have no purpose, but now I do. I love him dearly, even if I am not exactly what he was looking for in the wife department. But today I have become myself. I no longer feel like a placeholder, which I have told him I have felt in the past.

  Today, September 12, 1928, in the year of Our Lord, in the year of Oh Lord! I have done what I was meant to do in this world. I went flying. And I also went on the back of a motorcycle.

  But the motorcycle is beside the point. I knew last week I was going up, but I did not tell a soul. Sonya had telephoned and asked if I wanted to go out to the airstrip, because she had a friend who gave flying lessons. I reacted the way other women would have said yes to a fancy dance.

  There are women fliers, Blanche Scott, Harriet Quimby, Bessie Coleman . . . I would like Katharine Wright to be on the list with them.

  I am exhausted and stiff from sitting in this empty tub and from flying. I wore trousers I had purchased on our escape journey to Dayton (they are rough and wool and perfect for flying) and a leather jacket Sonya lent me. But the most exciting thing is I was not wearing a girdle, and tomorrow I shall throw away all my girdles. If I wear stockings, I shall simply wear a garter belt. I wore cotton underwear along with a cotton brassiere! Freedom! And I brought my camera with me, which hung around my neck.

  I shrieked when Sonya invited me, and I shrieked again this morning when Sonya picked me up on her new motorcycle, with a camera hanging on a strap around her neck, and there I was with my arms around her waist on the way to the airfield outside of town. And those chilling words the Reverend spoke soon after Mother died—“Cultivate modest feminine manners and control your temper, for temper is a hard master”—were left in the dust.

  After a wild ride out of tow
n, with me hanging on for dear life, we ended up out on the field right next to the most magnificent flying machine. The plane was made in Kansas, and it’s called a Stearman. I am in love with Stearman, so perhaps I am having an affair. Standing by it, patting the wing, was a tall and gangling young woman named Flo, with straight dark hair cropped in a bob. She wore fire-red lipstick like a flapper girl, and she was wearing a one-piece flying suit. I had barely climbed off the back of the motorcycle when she reached out her hand and shook mine hard. She said, “Wright Sister Finally Learns to Fly.”

  She handed me a pair of goggles that I strapped on. Then she helped me climb into the plane and got in after me. All the while she was talking and talking, giving me all sorts of instructions that felt like a familiar lullaby to me. She made me repeat every sentence she said after her, while I was itching to get up into the air. She could see my excitement and said, “Hold your horses, sister,” more than once.

  I had to control myself from screaming, “When are we going to go up?”

  But finally, finally, we were. We were racing down the runway, and then and then we were lifting off. I felt the wind and smelled the fuel, and I laughed out loud, as the earth fell away. I felt that rushing, rushing and quivering, when I was up in that aeroplane and looked down at the sunlit autumn fields and houses and roads. I rode as a passenger, as it was my first lesson, but Flo let me put my hand on the stick twice. We flew for one half of an hour, and although Flo landed a bit bumpily, she did it. There is no question in my addled mind. I should not say addled. I feel clear as a bell. I will take as many hours as needed until I can fly solo.