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When Orville was only ten, he made and sold kites. As children, they built things for the town. They even made their own newspaper called the West Side News. They made their own printing press by hand. The boys enjoyed swimming in the lake and playing hockey. The Wright house was filled with books. That was before there were televisions and radios. The boys spent a lot of time reading. The Bat When the boys were young, they received a present from their father. It was called "The Bat." The Bat was like a toy helicopter. You could wind up a rubber band and when you let it go, the propeller would spin and make it fly around the room. It was made out of cork, bamboo and paper. Every time the flying bat broke, they would build a new one and make it better than the one before.
The Wright brothers were very good at repairing bikes. Friends would bring their bikes to be fixed. They had so many bikes at home to repair, they opened a store. They had so much business, they couldn't handle it all so they hired a man named Ed Sines to run the paper press. As their business grew, they moved to a larger building and opened up an even more successful bike shop. This bicycle shop can still be seen in Greenfield Village. Their shop was called Wright Cycle Company and was where the Wright brothers built their first airplane. |
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Wilbur
and Orville made many things for neighbors and family when they were
young. They made a big wrap-around porch when they were 8 and 12 years
old. Hey who says women can’t build? Not me! Susan Koerner
Wright, the Wright brothers’ mother, built a 2 seat sled that both Orville and
Wilbur could fit in. She used wood and an old stove to make them a
sled. When the boys had a problem with building, they would go to
Susan. Susan loved to use her hands.
When
Orville was 18, he left high school to make a printing press. He had been
fascinated with printing ever since he and Wilbur had made a toy printing press
as kids. He started by going to a junk yard and getting odd parts such as
an old tombstone. Orville spent his summer vacations as an apprentice for
a Dayton, Ohio printer. He became an expert typesetter. (A
typesetter is a person who lays the letters for a paper). The brothers
eventually had their own print shop.
