PEOPLE: THE WRIGHT BROTHERS

Susan Wright, the mother of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright, did all of the family's household repairs. Their father, Milton, a reverend, was mechanically challenged. When they test-flew their motor-powered aircraft in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903 the fiercely private and reclusive Wright brothers were in their 30's and had never left their parents' Dayton, Ohio home. Wilbur, who was withdrawn both publicly and privately and shy around women, remained there until he died from typhoid fever on May 30 1912, at 45. He had contracted the infection during a Boston trip. His younger brother, Orville, who was withdrawn publicly but animated and talkative among friends and family, died in his mansion at 76 on January 30, 1948, three days after a heart attack he suffered while repairing his doorbell. [Source: Biography magazine, March 2001]