Jack and Kathleen met in the class of 1935 at St. Anthony’s High School in Washington DC. They married in 1942 and had ten children—the SIBLINGS. We siblings created this site as an archive of the remarkable and still-growing legacy that they could hardly have imagined.
John ‘Jack’ Wright was born in 1918 in Washington, DC. A proud member of the United States Naval Academy class of 1940, he married his high school sweetheart Kathleen ‘Kappy’ Kirk and immediately went off to serve in WW-II, ultimately serving as the Chief Engineer aboard Tuscaloosa his favorite ship. In 1967, following his eldest son into the sky, he earned his private pilot’s license. Following a 30-year career in the Navy Department, he retired in 1976 to enjoy 19 years traveling and watching his children grow, marry, and give him many grandchildren. He loved to write, and among his numerous writings is an autobiography, also available in EPUB and Kindle formats. He passed away suddenly in his home in 1995.
Kathleen ‘Kappy’ Kirk Wright was born in Columbus OH in 1918. Her family moved to Washington DC in 1931 where she met Jack Wright. They were married in 1942. A loving wife and superb mother, she had ten children with a love and devotion that is hard to describe. Along with her husband, she earned her private pilot’s license in 1967 and enjoyed flying with him for several years. But her greatest love was her very large extended family, including her brother, five sisters and their thirty nieces and nephews, nine children and their partners, and the constantly-growing list of grandchildren. After a long bout with cancer, she passed away peacefully at home in 1994, leaving many memories behind.
The PDF files in this folder were produced and annotated by Charlie from images scanned from a scrapbook provided by Anne. Images went through a text recognition program and the resulting text was reformatted to resemble the original image as possible.
An article written by Jack for the American Society of Naval Engineers, Inc. As with a number of Jack’s writings, attribution of this article was incorrect. Reproduced here exactly as it was published, the attribution to ‘John R. Wright’ is clearly incorrect and obviously should read ‘John H. Wright.' See also Permobility and Thrust Bearings.
The program provided to attendees at the memorial service conducted in Sykesville MD on June 19, 1995, by the Anatomy Board of Maryland. Both Kathleen and Jack donated their remains to the Anatomy Board of Maryland and, as a result, neither has an individual gravestone in any cemetery. But those wishing to visit their grave site may visit the grounds of the Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville. See also the Baltimore Sun Article and Geo Email Re Anatomy Board Service. Leaflet on the program is a souvenir plucked by George from the tree in the following item.
An article published in The Baltimore Sun on June 20, 1995, reporting the memorial service for donors. See also Anatomy Board Memorial Program and Geo Email Re Anatomy Board Service.
An item published in The Echo, a newsletter published weekly by St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church in Silver Spring, which Jack and Kathleen attended continuously from late 1948 until their deaths in 1994/1995.
Newspaper announcement of Jack and Kathleen’s wedding. The exact source of this clipping is unknown, but it was almost certainly clipped from the Washington Post, although it may have been taken from the Washington Star.
The program provided to attendees at Jack’s funeral service at St. Bernadette’s Church in Silver Spring MD on November 17, 1995. See also Jack Funeral Readings.
The text of the readings given by Maureen and Mary at Jack's funeral Mass. See also Jack Funeral Program.
The program provided to the attendees at Kathleen’s funeral Mass at St. Bernadette’s Church in Silver Spring MD on November 26, 1994.
As noted in the document, this is a collection of memoirs, testimonials, and eulogies written by the Wright siblings, grandchildren, and others, either shortly before or shortly after Kathleen’s death in November 1994.
Written by Jack four months after Kathleen’s death, this note is one of a number of Jack’s writings produced as he worked to come to terms with her passing and his loss.
This is Jack’s entry reproduced from the 1940 edition of the Lucky Bag, the US Naval Academy yearbook.
An article written by Jack for the American Society of Naval Engineers, Inc. This time, they got the attribution correct. See also Accent On Access and Thrust Bearings. One wonders whether Jack actually used “criteria” as a singular noun.
An article by Jack published in an unknown Catholic periodical in the 1990s. We think it's from the Jesuit magazine America, but we're not sure.
An item published in Shipmate, the US Naval Academy alumni magazine, following Kathleen’s death.
An article published in the Journal of American Society of Naval Engineers. See also Accent on Access and Permobility.
An 1966 newsletter of unknown origin about USS Amsterdam (CL-101, nicknamed "The Dutchman"). Includes several news reports from the period covering the last 90 days of WW-II, during which Jack was assigned to Amsterdam. Also includes Jack’s handwritten annotation indicating his visit to Guam. See Chapter XII of his autobiography for more details of the period mentioned in the newsletter.
A typed ‘Dear All’ letter from Jack and Kathleen reporting details of a cross-county road trip they took in the Spring of 1979. See Dear All for more such letters.
A collection of Jack's essays published in The Montgomery Journal during 1988--1989 under the banner "Speaking of Seniors" which, according to Jack himself, reflect his "philosophy and accumulated wisdom." This is also available as epub, mobi, and html.
For almost 15 years, as his children grew and, one-by-one, began to leave home, Jack wrote annual letters addressed to them collectively as a way of staying in touch with them. Addressed variously to ‘All of our children,’ ‘Wright Clan,’ and ‘Sons and Daughters,’ he eventually settled on ‘Dear All.’ These letters were mailed as Easter approached and continued his commitment to preaching his faith. Herewith, reproductions of those letters for which copies survive.
The first known of this collection of letters, this five-page, handwritten letter served as the model for those that followed. Each sibling received a ‘Xeroxed’ copy of the letter. (I understand that the youngs perhaps need a citation to recognize the trade-name Xerox as such machines are now known simply as ‘copiers.’)
Second in the series, this six-page, handwritten letter reflects Jack’s continued preaching of the ‘Gospel according to Jack.’
Realizing that the length of his first two letters was, perhaps, so long as to lose his audience, Jack shortened his message. Here, and henceforth, the letters are type-written and limited to a single page (although this letter also includes several lengthy attachments related to the return from Guam of Charlie and his family.)
Experimenting with the use of ‘carbon paper.' This scanned copy shows the limitations of that technology when used to make multiple copies.
The first letter addressed ‘Dear All.’
Post-script makes casual mention of how Jack and Kathleen expect to dispose of their household goods when they die.
The only letter of an entirely secular nature, this last discusses their plans to vacate the Kinross home after more than 30 years as they prepared to move into ‘ The Oaks.’
There are ten of us, of whom seven survive. Some are silent generation, some boomers. We live from Washington in the northwest to Florida in the southeast. All but one of us are retired.
Anne Kathryn Wright (named for her paternal and maternal grandmothers respectively) was born in Bremerton WA and grew up in Silver Spring. She lived briefly in Massachusetts before moving to San Diego in 1975 with her first husband Doug Deneen and baby daughter Jesse. Anne married Ken Mayer in 1987, the same year she passed the California bar exam. After Ken died in 2014, Anne lived briefly in Burien WA, before spending several years in the heart of Des Moines’ rich pageant. In 2021, she followed her now-grown daughter Jesse and son-in-law Simon to Cabot Cove in the hills near Colorado Springs CO.
Anne left us peacefully on the evening of June 12, 2023 after an all-too-brief battle with cancer. As one of us siblings wrote … and then there were seven.
First, and most appropriately, Anne wrote her own obituary. Pieced together from various notes and writings, and included at the beginning of this testament , it tells the story of her life, perfectly showcases her wit, sarcasm, and irreverence, and at the same time continuously catches the reader off guard with surprisingly deep insights, loving thoughts, and remembrances that pop up unexpectedly in the midst of her musings. The testament also includes Anne’s personal recollection of each of us siblings, written in her own inimitable style as she spent time remembering and reviewing her life and things important to her. These vignettes serve as individual and intimate good-byes to each of us and demonstrate her desire to make sure that each of us knew we were individually important to her. This testimony provides a full picture of the Anne we all knew and loved.
Then there is music, which was always a part of Anne’s life. While in San Diego, she and Ken amassed a large collection of CDs reflecting her many-sided musical taste. It’s not surprising, then, that she used music to help her understand and come to terms with her illness. Herewith a playlist she created during her final weeks and months. Like her testament above (but not for casual listening) its songs display the breadth and depth of her personality.
Finally, and in addition to Music, Anne loved words. She read extensively and, whenever she encountered a particularly memorable, profound, or pithy poem, quote, or statement, she wrote it down. She would recall these quotes as needed to punctuate her writings and conversations. We have collected many of these notes, in no particularly meaningful sequence, in this list of quotes and aphorisms for your reading pleasure.
Charlie was born in Washington DC in 1948 and grew up in Silver Spring MD. As a college boy, rather than partying, Charlie spent his weekends caving in West Virginia. Here’s a brief memoir of his adventures underground formatted for tablet, also available in large print and in e-pub format. After graduating from the University of Maryland in 1971 with a BS in Aerospace Engineering, he married Kathy Haber and joined the US Navy as a Naval Flight officer. The Navy sent them to Guam where children Terri and Katie Mitchell were born, and Charlie enjoyed duty in Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, and other locations in the western Pacific. Charlie and Kathy have documented these years in a memoir. Before completing his Navy service in 1977, he returned to school at the University of West Florida to earn a BS degree in Computer Science. Subsequently, he enjoyed long a career as a software developer, systems engineer, and program manager developing and integrating information systems for the US Department of Defense while working for Sperry Univac, Unisys, INRI, Logicon, and Northrop Grumman. Retired in 2008, Charlie and Kathy now live in Reston VA, where they enjoy traveling and visiting their two daughters and seven grandchildren.
Born in the Naval Hospital in Annapolis in 1944, George is member of the Naval Academy class of 1966, a former Navy fighter pilot, a former private pilot, and a retired college professor. He now lives in the Mercy Ridge retirement community with his wife, Patricia. Their children are Bob, Matt, Mike, and Philip.
George played baritone saxophone for some twenty years in MoodSwings, a Baltimore big band. The highlight of that experience was playing the White House. He also has an interesting story to tell about his last flight as a Navy fighter pilot.
George's public key is available here.
Our youngest sibling, Herbert Francis Wright II (named for his paternal grandfather) was born prematurely on May 19, 1961, and died the same day. We have no pictures of him, and only the oldest among us even remember the trip to the funeral home to say goodbye as he lay in his tiny casket.
John died on October 11, 2020, age 68. Unable to travel during the pandemic, we remembered him with a virtual wake. He is also remembered by his family and friends on a memorial website.
A University of Maryland graduate, John worked for 32 years in DoD intelligence. He retired to North Carolina in 2007 with wife Rita Pelczar. He developed gardens, raised hops, volunteered locally, and entertained a constant stream of visitors. John’s greatest joys were watching his children Alice, Curtis, and Jack develop into adults, holding each new grandson, and enjoying the mountain view from his porch at “Shangri-la” as he sipped an evening “medicinal.”
Married to Greg. Mother of Joe and Monica.
Katie attended St. Bernadette's grade school (grades 1-8) and Regina High School in Hyattsville (grades 9-12). She got her AA degree from Montgomery College in Rockville and continued at the University of Maryland where she graduated with a "General Studies" BA degree which was essentially a way to forgo declaring a major.
After three years of living in sin, Greg and Katie eloped and were married in Berkeley Springs. West Virginia at Rob and Sandy Campbell's house; Rob is Greg's cousin. Upon revealing the news to her parents, her father said, "Oh, thank god, I don't think I could have taken another wedding!" They moved to a tiny, one-bedroom apartment in Hyattsville MD where Joe was born in 1984. Soon after they moved to a townhouse in the Greenbelt MD Cooperative, Greenbelt Homes Inc (GHI). Katie continued to work while Greg took a break from his remodeling business and watched baby Joe. Monica was born in 1987 at which time Greg and Katie switched roles with Greg working and Katie watching the kids. In 1986, they heard about a group that bought and subdivided a tract of land in Greenbelt. As a carpenter by trade, Greg had always wanted to build his own home, so they jumped at the chance and grabbed one of the last two available lots. They began the happy process of designing the home of their dreams. In May 1988, Greg began working full-time on their home, building it in nine months. They moved into their new home at 156 Research Road on New Years Eve 1988. On New Years Day they awoke in their new home to a yard magically decorated by an overnight snow storm.
After working as a secretary, at her brother Charlie's insistence that she would make a great computer programmer, Katie searched for work in that field. This was in the early days of that field before the proliferation of computer science degree programs and professional certifications. Companies would hire and train people in the field. Katie joined a company as a technical writer (hired solely on the basis of one technical writing course taken in college that her father insisted she list on her resume). For any employee that could pass a computer aptitude test, the Company offered a free, year-long computer programming training course at night followed by a computer programmer position. The aptitude test was three hours long and had only three questions, all logic questions, no specific technical knowledge required. Katie used all three hours but scored 100% on the test. After the training she began working as a programmer on mainframes using COBOL and JCL software. She worked on various government contracts for Departments of Energy and Labor to name a few. She eventually made the jump from government contractor to government employee when she was hired by the Office of the Comptroller for the Currency (OCC) which is part of the Treasury Department. Katie thrived at the OCC and was able to make the necessary technical transitions from mainframes and sequential programming to PC's and database programming and finally web-based design. Katie loved those 20+ years of technical work. But due to the need for competent Project Managers, she eventually got pushed into that side of the work and out of the technical work that she loved. While she could be depended on to deliver her projects on time and on budget, Katie found the work to be tedious and mostly joyless. Out of boredom, she made the jump to the OCC's Cybersecurity department but again was relegated to the bureaucratic side of things (compliance work) instead of the more engaging and fun technical work which was reserved for contractors.
Katie was thrilled to be able to retire when her first grandson was born in 2016 and has not looked back since. Katie and Greg watch the grandkids weekday afternoons and have spent many a summer day with them around the kiddie pool and sprinkler. Katie has also become active in volunteer work in several local Greenbelt groups and one county-wide group, the Prince George's County Lynching Memorial Project (PGC LMP) for which she is co-secretary. The PGC LMP is affiliated with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). Both organizations are committed towards educating people about our nation's full history, especially with respect to slavery and racial terror lynchings, and how that history continues to shape our present. Katie became more attuned to the issues of racial justice as she raised her family in Prince George's County, a majority Black county. In retirement, Katie and Greg also took two eye-opening car trips to various Civil Rights related sites. The first, In 2018 was to Memphis TN and MS. Highlights included: the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis which includes the Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was assassinated, the flat cotton fields of the Mississippi delta, hearing music at "Red's," one of the last surviving juke joints in Clarksdale MS, memorial for Fannie Lou Hamer in Ruleville MS, Bryant's Grocery where Emmett Till was accused of flirting with the white shopkeeper, Medgar Evers' Home in Jackson MS where he was assassinated in 1963. The second in 2019 was to GA and AL. Highlights included: Easter service at MLK's Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta GA, Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham AL where a bomb killed 4 young girls, Selma AL where we walked across the Edmund Pettus bridge, the site of "Bloody Sunday" in 1965 and most of all, EJI's powerfully moving Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery AL. It was this visit to EJI's museum and memorial that inspired Katie to become active in the PGC LMP.
Married to Gary Toth. Mother of Leilah Lyons and Valerie Dixon.
Martha grew up in Silver Spring MD, graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, and married her high school sweetheart, Gary Toth. With a draft lottery number that guaranteed Vietnam Era military service, Gary joined the U.S. Air Force in 1971. During two years of helicopter pilot training, he and Martha moved every few months to another middle-of-nowhere “garden spot.” During three years living near Clark Air Base in the Philippines, she went from an unpaid teaching aide to a teacher and on-site administrator of an adult high school on base.
When they returned to the States in late 1976, Martha was pregnant with their daughter, Leilah, and Gary switched from Search and Rescue to Special Operations. Anxious to leave the service before he got killed, he took an offer from Ford to work in Dearborn as an engineer. Their daughter Valerie was born in Michigan, where Martha occupied herself with volunteer work for several years, first creating and running a parent advocacy group for the education of gifted children, then volunteering 20 hours a week in a gifted program classroom. She eventually served for a bit over 25 years on her local school board, during which she tried to become a lay expert on the theory and practice of teaching and learning.
She returned to paid work at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1991, where she did writing, editing, publication design, and database management for the education outreach program of an NSF-funded research center. She was also an early webmaster as the Web succeeded Gopher, in the era of Mosaic and modems, building an expansive site of hands-on science activities.
A few months after Martha was laid off by the university (the minute education outreach was no longer required), Gary was alerted to his Stage IV cancer by a sudden loss of speech—due to the largest of “innumerable” brain metastases. For nearly three years, he went through every possible standard (and a few experimental) treatments. He was able to see Leilah marry and Valerie graduate from college. Both girls were graduate students in Ann Arbor during much of this period, which was a blessing to all. Martha was able to work part-time for the non-profit formed by her education outreach group to continue their mentoring programs and, with two colleagues, write a book on the most important lessons they learned during 20-some years of such work.
After losing Gary in 2005, she did some international traveling—to Jordan and Paris with sister Anne, and to Denmark, Greece, and Australia with her daughters. After Leilah and Brett settled in the Seattle area, Valerie and Darius settled in the DC Metro area, and both couples bought homes and had children, Martha realized they were never coming back to Michigan and chose to move to Seattle herself. She lives a few blocks from Leilah, Brett, and granddaughter Suren, and (except during pandemics) visits a few times a year with Valerie, Darius, and grandsons Demetrius and Marcus—now living in Silver Spring near her starting place.
Married to Jerry McGinn. Mother of Chris McGinn and Tim McGinn.
Monica recently marked the end of 22.5 years working at her current job and just shy of 40 working years as a speech language pathologist. Check out her retirement party.
Other sections introduced our PARENTS, Jack and Kathleen, and us, their ten children, the SIBLINGS. The below sections introduce our 22 CHILDREN, Jack and Kathleen's grandchildren, and our 26 GRANDCHILDREN, their great-grandchildren. The PARTNERS section comprises all generations.
This section describes the lineage of the Wright family. It includes family history told through family tree diagrams, photos, family artifacts, biographies, etc.
Katie compiled the Wright family history using Family Tree Maker from Ancestry.com. The information and photos in it were culled from Jack's autobiography plus material from amateur genealogist and maternal grandfather Harry Kirk. It includes family trees, documents and photos for Jack and Kathleen’s nuclear family and for their respective families of origin.
A 1955 dissertation by Catholic University graduate student Ann Martha Sandberg. Herbert Francis Wright is Jack's father and Herbie's namesake. The Introduction describes Dr. Wright as an “internationally known law expert, scholar, author and editor” and a “prolific writer and adept speaker.”
A biography of Kathleen's mother, written in 1985 by her son-in-law, Jack.
A memoir of Albert M. Wigglesworth, Jack's uncle, written by Dr. Wigglesworth in 1958. In 1986 Jack used his Commodore 64 to convert the doctor's handwritten manuscript into printed form, adding an introduction and background material. We suspect that Kathleen did most of the typing. Other version: EPUB file, Kindle Content, and PDF.