On another occasion, they were with Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, and his wife. “We all liked them very much,” wrote Katharine. She wrote also of a “rousing good time” at lunch with Lord and Lady Balfour.
Arthur Balfour, former prime minister of England, was so eager to take part in preparations for Wilbur’s flights at Pont-Long that along with Lord Northcliffe he helped haul on the rope that lifted the catapult weight into place. Seeing a young British lord also assisting, Northcliffe remarked to Orville, who was standing close by watching, “I’m so glad that young man is helping with the rope, for I’m sure it is the only useful thing he has ever done in his life.”
Katharine had the thrill of a day’s expedition to the Pyrénées by automobile with a wealthy Irish couple and, as she reported to her father, knowing how it would please him, she had begun taking French lessons for two hours every morning, and with her background in Greek and Latin her progress was rapid. One of those helping her with her French was the son of Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau. Another she greatly liked was the Comtesse de Lambert, the attractive wife of Wilbur’s student the Comte de Lambert.
Her complaints were few. On those days when there was no sun, the cold and dampness were such as she did not care for. Besides, Edith Berg, whom she had liked at first in Paris, was getting on her nerves. She was “a regular tyrant and as selfish as anyone can be. We will be glad when she goes.” But to judge by her letters, that was as “wrathy” as Katharine turned during the time in Europe, and though Edith Berg stayed on, Katharine appears to have had no further complaints about her.
More press arrived, more photographs were taken, more articles written for Le Figaro, the Paris Herald, the London Daily Mail, the New York Times, and papers back in Ohio. One story sent by the United Press from Paris claimed a French army lieutenant had charged Wilbur in a divorce case. The story was a complete fabrication that none of the French papers carried, but in Dayton, where it did appear, it caused a temporary embarrassing sensation. Wilbur wrote an angry denial. Family and friends at home rose quickly to his defense, saying he was not that sort of man.
Since arriving in Paris in January, Orville had told reporters that, given his physical state, it would be foolish for him to attempt any exertion. At Pau, he mainly stood and watched, saying little. With his derby hat, well-pressed suit, his polished shoes and cane, he could have been another of the European aristocrats.
A writer for Flyer magazine. H. Massac Buist, was surprised to see how small Orville was, indeed, how different both brothers were from what he had expected, judging from press accounts. “I have never seen them taciturn, or curt, or secretive, or any of the other things which I had been led to believe were their outstanding characteristics.” Recalling a line attributed to Wilbur—“Well, if I talked a lot I should be like a parrot, which is the bird that speaks most and flies least.”—Buist wrote that in the course of a day Wilbur talked quite as much as most men; the difference was his words were to the point.
The less Orville had to say, the more Katharine talked and with great effect. She had become a celebrity in her own right. The press loved her. “The masters of the aeroplane, those two clever and intrepid Daytonians, who have moved about Europe under the spotlight of extraordinary publicity, have had a silent partner,” went one account. But silent she was no longer and reporters delighted in her extroverted, totally unaffected Midwestern American manner.
Some of what was written went too far. She was said to have mathematical genius superior even to that of her brothers, and that she was the one financing their time in Europe. In the main, however, it was full-hearted, long-overdue, public recognition of the “mainstay” of her brothers in their efforts.
Who was it who gave them new hope, when they began to think the problem [of flight] impossible? . . . Who was it that nursed Orville back to strength and health when the physicians had practically given him up after that fatal accident last September?
Besides, wrote one correspondent, “Like most American girls, the aviators’ sister has very decided views of her own.”