So much has been going on lately, including some family travel south, that I have (once again) been remiss in writing much here at The Back Porch. My apologies. And if I have it figured right, this summer looks to be pretty distracting, too. So it is with a full life, I suppose. Thanks for stopping by.
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Friday, 1 June, is an interesting day in Dayton history.
Following the city’s slow embrace of the Wright brothers’ accomplishments in flight, the local community staged a huge area-wide celebration in mid-June 1909. During the centennial of flight festivities in 2003, the 1909 parade and celebration feting Orville and Wilbur was reproduced regularly at Dayton History’s Carillon Park. Special angel-clad monuments were recreated to duplicate the ones set up on Main Street, downtown, the century prior. From all accounts, 1909 Daytonians were mighty excited to celebrate their then world-renowned native sons.
But just three years following that celebration, the Dayton community faced a painful reality: Wilbur Wright, age 42, had succumbed to deadly typhoid fever. It was on 1 June 1912 that Dayton came out to help put Wilbur to rest in the family burial plot in Woodland Cemetery. Story has it that Dayton ground to a halt for part of that day. Industry assembly lines stopped, telephone switchboards went unswitched, and twenty-five thousand locals lined the streets leading from First Presbyterian Church downtown to Woodland Cemetery. Such a contrast, indeed, between this and the huge celebration held just three years prior.
So on this 1 June, the centennial of Wilbur’s interment, Dayton gathered once again to celebrate her fallen native son. Special guest for this year’s event was Ohio-born hero and flight/space icon, Neil Armstrong.
Maybe a couple hundred people made it to Woodland yesterday for the commemoration. Two fly-bys were scheduled, but due to rainy conditions and a low ceiling, neither the Wright B Flyer nor the WACO bi-planes (flying in missing-man formation) risked the trip. Still, being there with Mr. Armstrong was powerful stuff.
Unfortunately, the sound system set-up by the cemetery folk failed to amplify voices well enough. Some speakers, too, including Mr. Armstrong, didn’t understand that their voices weren’t being heard. By the time we could hear something of Mr. Armstrong’s remarks, he was into his second paragraph. From what I felt at the time, his words sounded pretty poetic to me. Wish I had a copy of what he said to share with you here today.
Along with Neil Armstrong, Stephen Wright and his sister, Amanda, addressed those gathered. They are grand-nephew and grand-niece of the unmarried, childless brothers. Also speaking was a representative of United Theological Seminary, the Dayton establishment first headed by the Wright’s father, Bishop Milton Wright. Thirty minutes into the commemoration, at 3:30, all stopped for a moment of silence. Though we could not hear any from the cemetery, church bells around Dayton pealed in memory of the loss of Wilbur a century ago.
I’ve been to the Wright’s Woodland Cemetery plot lots of times, taking any number of visitors with me. Yesterday I was glad to have son-in-law Bill Bryant, his son Alex, and my other grandboy, Noah, with me. We shivered a bit and the boys were disappointed the flyovers were cancelled, but all of us were struck by the dignity of the event and the significance of how Wilbur and his brother changed the world forever. We felt ourselves proud native sons of Dayton, too.
It was first time the boys have seen Neil Armstrong in person. Seeing the first man to set foot on the moon standing over the place where one of the guys who invented flight was buried was enough for this grandpa to think the day had gone just right.
Today’s Elder Idea: ‘A short life, full of consequence. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadfastly, he lived and died.’
Bishop Milton Wright
written in his diary the day of Wilbur’s death
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