“The gifts Susan Wright gave her children would someday change the world. But during her life, her impact went unsung. While Wilbur and Orville’s mother gave them wings, she never lived to see them fly,” is the last sentence of this short essay and audio report by Leo DeLuca titled, “Susan Wright: The Mother of Flight”.

My investigation came as a quipped thought about my grandson, the 4-year-old “inventor”. That thought wandered into me looking for the kind of people the Wright Brothers had on their team because we all know nothing extraordinary is ever invented in a vacuum (well, the devoid of other smart people kind of vacuum). There were others, and I’m certain many others. However, mom gets a boatload of credit. She was the mechanic and carpenter of the family and it’s reported by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum that “ As boys, Wilbur and Orville would consult their mother whenever they needed mechanical assistance or advice.”

Another famous child flourished in that Wright family, Katharine Wright Haskell, but we’ll save her for another time.

Milton Wright, the children’s dad, was a religious man and a bishop of his church who apparently spent more time away from home than in it. Susan, like so many mom’s, was the glue that held the family together and the wind beneath their “lofty ideas”. I would have loved to have met her. Maybe you would have, too. Here’s the best I can offer today.