 hen
the Wrights moved back to Dayton for the last time, their mother was in poor health.
Wilbur, a top-notch scholar and athlete, seemed bound for Yale. But in 1886 he was smashed
in the face with a hockey stick and lost his front teeth. Complications ensued. Although his facial injuries healed, a few weeks afterwards he
developed "nervous palpitations of the heart" and digestive problems. After a
year's rest, these too disappeared, but Wilbur was somewhat changed. He thought himself an
invalid (or at least as someone with a frail, vulnerable constitution) and decided that a
college degree "would be money and time wasted." He may have also
had a change of heart about leaving home, especially with his mother so
sick -- the Wrights were a tight-knit family. Whatever the reason, he put
his life on hold and made it his job to nurse his mother Susan. His
curiosity and his affinity for learning remained unchanged, however. When
he wasn't looking after his mother, he read voraciously.
Orville lost interest in school and went from being a good student to relatively mediocre. At the same time, he began to be interested in printing. While still in Richmond, he had experimented with wooden block printing. Back in Dayton, he found that an old boyhood friend, Ed Sines, had a small printing press and the two began printing small jobs -- handbills, letterheads, business cards, and so on. Orville also worked several summers as a printers "devil" (apprentice) to learn the trade, developing his professional printing skills. In 1889, Bishop Milton Wright split from his church over a new constitution allowing membership in secret societies, which the Bishop bitterly opposed. Secret societies such as the Masonic Order had been a pernicious influence in the early years of American politics. They were an elitist network that conferred upon their members unfair advantages in business and political activities. But by the latter half of the nineteenth century, they had mostly devolved into social clubs with only a vestige of their former power. Nonetheless, the Bishop regarded the secret rituals and symbols employed by Freemasonry and others as a sacrilege. With other United Brethren conservatives, he organized a new sect, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (Old Constitution). At a church congress in Pennsylvania, he was unanimously elected its head, then came home to Dayton to find his wife failing. A little more than a month later, Susan Wright died of tuberculosis. |
Click
on a picture to enlarge it. Although Orville lost interest in school in general, he seemed to like the sciences. This painstakingly detailed sketch of a pussy willow branch is from his 1897 botany notebook.
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