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1878 Bishop Milton Wright assumed responsibility for the western conferences in the United
Brethren Church and moved his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The Bishop was often away from
home on church business, and returning from one of his trips, he brought his two youngest
sons a rubber band-powered toy helicopter. (Orville later recalled that the helicopter was
based on a design by French inventor Alphonse
Penaud, whose work in aeronautics they would
study as grown men.) Wilbur and Orville made several copies of this toy -- this was the
first powered aircraft they built together. When caught by his teacher while working
on one of these toys when he should have been studying, Orville explained that he and
Wilbur planned to build a craft large enough to carry both of them.Both boys did well in school, although Orville had a reputation for mischief. His eighth and ninth grade teacher made him sit at the front of the class where she could keep and eye on him. The Bishop himself was occasionally at odds with the school authorities for allowing his children to take "a half a day off now and then" to pursue their own intellectual interests. He maintained a large personal library and encouraged his children to use it. He also sent back many letters from his wide travels, purposefully designed to stimulate his children's curiosity. Looking back on his childhood, Orville once commented that he and his brother had "special advantages...we were lucky enough to grow up in a home environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests; to investigate whatever aroused their curiosity." |
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When Wilbur was 12 and Orville 8, they built several toy helicopters. Much later, Orville made this sketch of the flying toys he and his brother had built.
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In Their Own Words
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