Published: Sun, Sep. 14, 2003 12:30AM

Modified Sun, Oct. 23, 2005 03:56PM

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Katharine never came to Kitty Hawk herself, but it would have been difficult for her brothers to take those crucial journeys if she hadn't been taking care of the father and the communal home.

Almost invariably described by people who knew her as vivacious and friendly, Katharine also became the social ambassador for the family, welcoming the powerful and famous to the Wright home for decades.

"I think people tend to overlook the depth of her," Dewey said. "She wasn't just the little sister tagging along."

Much is made of the different attributes that Orville and Wilbur each brought to the quest for flight. The common view, apparently not far from the truth, is that Wilbur was the visionary genius and Orville the gifted tinkerer. Katharine was quite familiar with their work, and because the brothers were so busy she was often the one left to explain or defend them in letters.

Charming promoter

Neither man cared much for fame or social occasions and there was plenty of both after their success, so Katharine stepped into that void, too, Particularly during and after the three siblings' 1908 triumphant trip to France, when Wilbur's flights finally gained the brothers credit for their invention. Royalty, captains of industry and the press alike were all charmed by Katharine

And why not, said Maurer, the biographer. By comparison, her almost single-minded brothers seem two-dimensional.

"She was easily the most personable member of the family, the only one who could go out and meet and greet," Maurer said. "On many levels, what comes through is that she was really a nice person.

"It comes through in the letters, the photos of her, these cryptic diary entries her father made, that here's this wonderful, vivacious, unpretentious, friendly person. I just really like her. It's hard to like Orville and Wilbur, and really hard to like Milton. But not her."

Milton Wright had always taught his children to think for themselves and had made it clear, for example, that he believed women had as much right to education as men. With his backing, Katharine had gone off to Oberlin College and earned a degree -- unlike either of her famous brothers and unlike nearly all women of the era. She then began a career as a teacher, though she often chafed under male administrators.

Milton Wright's expectation that all members of the family would think independently gets credit from many historians for the intellectual approach that led to the airplane

"Here was a family where ideas could be discussed and ideas were expected to be defended," Maurer said. "The airplane couldn't have been invented in any other way. They had to question orthodox ways and then find their own way to solve the problems."

But the same Milton Wright who in his 80s marched with Katharine in a 1914 suffrage parade, had also chained her to a traditional domestic burden. The perfect image of the virtuous woman in that era was the devoted daughter who dedicated her life to taking care of a widowed father. Her father sent her to college, but in part so that she could find work as a teacher to support him in old age.

"She was living two separate lives," Dewey said. "There was what she was expected to do, and what she wanted to do."

Women's rights advocate

What she wanted to do included working for women's rights, which at that time weren't any more advanced than the airplane. She was president of the local Young Women's League and one of the founding members of the Dayton Women's Club. The idea of the club -- which still exists -- was to provide recent female college graduates and those thinking about college a place to socialize and network.