Tonganoxie ? It’s common knowledge the Wright brothers made their first flight 100 years ago today.

A lesser-known fact is that the famous brothers had close ties to Tonganoxie and Lawrence.

In fact, a great-niece of the Wright brothers, Margaret (Steeper) Brown, an alumna of McLouth High School, and her husband, Bob, are attending the centennial celebration today in Kitty Hawk, N.C.

Brown has lived in California for decades, but her Kansas roots stretch to Tonganoxie.

While the Wright brothers were making aeronautical history at Kitty Hawk, their oldest brother and Margaret Brown’s grandfather, Reuchlin Wright, was farming just east of here.

Reuchlin (pronounced roosh-lynn) and his family lived in the Tonganoxie area through the early 1900s.

On Oct. 8, 1919, when Reuchlin’s daughter, Ellwyn, married Harold Steeper in a triple wedding ceremony in McLouth, the guests included Orville Wright and his sister, Kathryn Wright, both of Dayton, Ohio.

Married in the triple wedding were:

• Ellwyn Reuchlin, who lived in Kansas City, Mo., and Harold William Steeper of McLouth.
• Irene May Steeper and Frank Schaeffer, both of McLouth.
• Gladys Lucile Steeper and Robert Roos, both of McLouth.

Harold, Irene and Gladys were siblings.

A news brief in the Oct. 23, 1919, Tonganoxie Mirror mentioned the McLouth weddings, as well as the name of the famous guest: “Mr. Orville Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, inventor of the flying machine, was present at his niece’s wedding.”

His brother Wilbur had died seven years earlier, in 1912.

Louise (Bradford) Gilbert, who lives in McLouth, remembers the 1919 wedding. Gilbert, a cousin of Harold, Irene and Gladys, carried the ring for Irene.

Gilbert, 89, recalled that Harold and Ellwyn Steeper later lived in Lawrence. Their daughter, Margaret, graduated from McLouth High School, and their son, Charles Harold, graduated from high school in Lawrence.

In 1946, when Margaret was married at the First Methodist Church in Lawrence, Orville Wright returned to Kansas to attend her wedding.

In the late 1940s, Harold and Ellwyn Steeper moved to Claremont, Calif., where their children lived.

After Orville Wright died in 1948, Harold Steeper served as a co-administrator of Orville Wright’s estate. Both Harold and Ellwyn are buried in McLouth Cemetery.