The Independent-News, Volume 121, Number 33, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 28 December 1995 — Page 16

— INDEPENDENT NEWS — DEC. 28, 1995

WRIGHT’S COUSIN RECALLS FAMILY HISTORY Mina Doll didn’t witness her cousins make history by being the first men to fly, but she’s soared with them through their stories. Mrs. Doll, 90, is the third cousin of Wilbur and Orville Wright, who flew off of Kill Devil Hill in Kitty Hawk, NC, on Dec. 17, 1903.

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Doll, born two years after the flight, got to know her bachelor cousins over the years through family visits. “I think it’s a privilege to be able to relate what I do know about them,” said the retired teacher. ‘‘lt is history.” While Mrs. Doll does enjoy talking about her cousins, she doesn’t broadcast her connection with

them; a touch of that modesty runs in the family. Her cousins were never much for boasting about their achievement. “They were very reserved,” she said. “They were very down to earth, not high-minded at all. They were ordinary people.” Doll was closer to Orville than Wilbur, mainly because Orville lived just a few miles from Newcastle, Indiana, where Doll worked as a teacher. When the family gathered for visits, aviation wasn’t always the main topic of discussion, Doll said. Nor

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did the pair try to turn their achievement into clebrity. “I guess it would have been nice, but he was so modest about it that we didn’t really go try for publicity,” she said. But publicity often came, and sometimes with less than pleasant consequences. Orville’s summer home near Toronto was destroyed because sightseers would take bits of it as souvenirs. Orville was always pleased to have succeeded in the invention of the airplane, Doll remembered. But sometimes he wished things had been a little different. “Orville said one time he was glad for the invention, but he would be sorrowful if it was used for destruction,” Doll said. “But what could they do? It

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was out of their hands.” Her cousins once explained that the decision to try and create a flying maching using the tools available to them in their bicycle shop didn’t involve any agonizing on their part. “They said if the birds can fly, why can’t we?” Doll said. “It was that simple. They had the bug.” ♦** Almost anyone can tell you how to live your life.

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