The 1974 Xenia Tornado and the Wright Family

Updated September 9, 2025 

April 3, 1974, it was late afternoon, and I was standing in our front yard in Beavercreek, Ohio,  looking at the odd dark cloud cover passing overhead. The clouds had a strange look about them, billowy in lieu of smooth. A yellowish color. Flattened hail, not round, maybe half inch thick, the size of half dollars had fallen, and covered the ground. The storm system passed over our house, as it headed east toward Xenia, Ohio. The wide system also passed over Bellbrook, six miles south of us, as it moved east. Several tornadoes formed there, and converged into a half to three-quarter mile wide F5 tornado with winds as high as 300 mph. The storm system hit Xenia, 12 miles east of our home, killing 32 and injuring over 1100, as it destroyed half the city of 25,000. (1)

 

          Xenia, Ohio, April 1974 tornado aftermath. Photo courtesy of Green County Public Library.

 

Wilbur and Orville Wright had two older brothers, Reuchlin, and Lorin. Lorin was married to Ivonette (Netta) Stokes, and they had two sons, Milton and Horace, and two daughters, Ivonette and Leontine. Milton and wife Ann Grosvenor married in 1917 and had two sons, Milton and George Wilkinson. Ivonette and husband Harold Miller married in 1919 and had three children, Jack, Ivonette, and Marianne. Leontine had married John Jameson in 1923, and they had a son and daughter, John and Leontine. Finally, Horace married Susan Blair on June 30, 1928. 

The Lorin Wright Family Tree as shown on display monitor at Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. Horace and Susan are listed at far right, under The Lorin Wright Family title. 

 

Horace and Susan Wright's home was east of Bellbrook, and southwest of Xenia. The path of the tornado as it headed toward Xenia, crossed over the Wright's property. 

Beavercreek upper left corner, Bellbrook lower left corner, Xenia upper right corner. Dayton is west of Beavercreek. Horace and Susan Wright's home at it's location in 1974. Map courtesy of Google Earth.

 

Approximate path of April 3, 1974 tornado that passed over the Horace and Susan Wright home, destroying it, and then on to Xenia. Drawing as shown in Dayton Daily News, April 4, 1974.

 

Dayton Daily News, April 11, 1974, "Horace Wright, nephew of Orville and Wilbur Wright, lost his home in the tornado that ravaged Greene county a week ago. But Horace and his wife, Susan, came through unscathed and what's more, none of their Wright brother's memorabilia was lost in the storm. 'We were very lucky.' Wright said. 'And our neighbors were just great, just great. I don't know what we'd have done without such fine neighbors.' 

The Wrights were home when the tornado hit. He saw it coming, she heard it. And it was she who knew right away what was happening. 'I could hear it', she said. 'It was just like being run over by a train. The noise was loud, real loud, just like a train. And it kept getting louder and louder. 'I called to Horace, There's a tornado coming!' Horace had been in the living room of their home at 2450 Spahr Rd. in Sugarcreek Twp. Mrs. Wright was in a back bedroom. The Wrights leaned against the front hallway separating the bedrooms at the side of the house. 'The storm was over in a matter of minutes but it seemed like forever,' she said. 

The big blow left the house in shambles. The garage and recreation room were completely blown away. The wall separating the living room from the rec room collapsed. 'But the funny thing is that the wall fell outwards, not in,' Wright said. 'Tornadoes act strangely.' In a bracket over the fireplace in the living room, the Wrights have an 18-inch high cast iron bell hanging from a wrought-iron bracket that Wright made. The bell is one of their Wright brothers memorabilia. The bell came from the airfield at Le Mans, France where Orville and Wilbur had conducted experimental flights in 1908. 'The bell was used to call them to eat', Mrs. Wright said. 'It has Wilbur's name on it.' The bell, she said, had been made by the Bolle [Bolle'e] Manufacturing Co. of France. It was not damaged."

The Wilbur Wright Bell, as described at Carillon Historical Park, Dayton, Ohio, where it is now on display. Survivor of the 1974 Bellbrook / Xenia tornado. Photo by Author.

 

"The Wrights carried out all of their salvageable valuables to a neighbor later in the evening of the storm. 'All of the cartoons, etchings, various awards and books that we had that once belonged to the Wright brothers, we carried out that night,' Mrs. Wright said. 'We have Orville's complete nature library.'....." (2)

 

Susan and Horace Wright standing outside their tornado damaged home, April, 1974. (2)

Dayton Daily News, March 17, 1993, "When Horace Wright, Orville Wright's nephew, married Susan Blair in 1928, Horace wore a black swallowtailed tuxedo borrowed from his famous aviator uncle...The wedding attire, along with a Wright family wooden gameboard for playing checkers and carroum [carrom], a pool-like game, was donated to the museum by Susan Blair Wright of Bellbrook last November. The tuxedo includes Orville's pearl cuff links, original shirt studs, two black formal bow ties, and a black formal vest...."

Horace Wright died April 13, 1988 at the age of 86. Susan Blair Wright donated the items mentioned in the Daily News 1993 article to the Kettering-Moraine Museum in Kettering, November of 1992. Susan Wright died in 1999 at the age of 96. The museum closed in 2008 and artifacts were transferred to Dayton History, for display at Carillon Historical Park.  

Orville Wright's tuxedo, Game Board, and Milton Wright's cane, as pictured in Dayton Daily News, March 17, 1993 article. (3)

My wife and I visited Carillon Historical Park this September of 2025 to take photos of the items previously owned by Horace and Susan Wright, items that survived the 1974 tornado. The  game board, and cane were on display. 

 

Carrom Game Board identified as From the Estate of Orville Wright, on display at Carillon Historical Park. The Game Board was inherited by Horace and Susan Wright, and then eventually donated by Susan. Survivor of the 1974 tornado. Photo by Author.

 

Display at Carillon Historical Park with Milton Wright's cane, survivor of the 1974 tornado, Gift of Susan Blair Wright. Photo by Author.

 

The signage for Orville's tuxedo appears to indicate the suit is not the one loaned to Horace Wright. The sign lists the Tuxedo as Ca. 1940, maker unknown, from the NCR Archives at Dayton History. The Men's Formal Vest is listed as Ca. 1920-1940, Made by George W. Heller, Inc., gift of Ivonette Wright Miller. The Top Hat is listed as Ca. 1900-1930, Made by the Crofut & Knaff Company, gift of Ivonette Wright Miller.  The photograph of Orville Wright and Amelia Earhart is identified as at the third aeronautic meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1929, courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University. 

Orville would have owned more than one tuxedo during his lifetime. From the signage, it appears this is not the borrowed Orville Wright tuxedo Horace Wright wore at his 1928 wedding to Susan. The tuxedo Horace wore had a black vest. The tuxedo displayed at Carillon Historical Park has a white vest. 

Orville Wright's tuxedo on display at Carillon Historical Park. Photo by Author.

 

Dayton Daily News, May 20, 1999- "Jeanne Palermo, curator at Carillon Historical Park...held in her carefully gloved hands Wednesday was a piece of fabric from the lower right wing of Wilbur and Orville Wright's 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer....The cloth was donated to the park from the estate of the late Susan Blair Wright of Bellbrook, who died March 5, at 96....The old wing fabric and other parts of the 1903 flyer were stored in crates in a shed behind the Wright bicycle shop at 1127 W. Third St. The area was submerged in 12 feet of water during the flood of March 25-26, 1913, but a thick layer of mud protected the artifacts with minimal damage. Wright family members later kept the original wing fabric when the flyer was restored to hang in the Smithsonian Institution. The 'Pride of the West' muslin, purchased by the Wrights at Rike's department store, has been preserved and given to a few people in inch-square swatches. The donated piece, about 2 feet by 6 feet, carried the name "Bus", nickname of Horace Wright, in what appears to be Orville's hand, Palermo said. Park officials are delighted to have a piece large enough to show stitching, oil spills, a hand-sewn patch and the tack marks from its attachment to the wing of the historic plane."  

This 2' by 6' piece of fabric flew on the first flights of December 17, 1903.  It was later submerged under 12' of river water, mud, and sewage during the Dayton March, 1913 Flood. It then survived destruction during the April 3, 1974 tornado system that destroyed Horace and Susan Wright's home, and much of the City of Xenia. 

I hope to eventually see this piece of fabric within the archives at Carillon. When that happens, I'll add a photo to this post. 

 

For more on the survival of the 1903 Kitty Hawk Wright Flyer, see my post:

The 1903 Wright Flyer and Wood Remnants 

You may be interested in these posts on the 1913 Dayton Flood:

The 1913 Dayton, Ohio Flood- As Told by Bishop Milton Wright 

The 1913 Dayton Flood and the Wright Family 

And on Orville's brushes with death:

The Nine Lives of Orville Wright 

 

Copyright 2025-Getting the Story Wright

 

Notes-

1. My Dad was the pastor at Kirkmont Presbyterian Church in Beavercreek in 1974. As a pastor, he had permission to drive into Xenia to assist. I was 16 years old, and a Junior at Beavercreek High School. We walked the streets of Xenia and the devastation was everywhere. I remember standing on a sidewalk looking within a church where the Sanctuary street side stone wall had collapsed, exposing the pipe organ and pipes. Some of the pipes lay on the ground, but most were still upright and in place, exposed to the weather. Later, we walked into a soup kitchen that had been set up to provide lunch to town residents and volunteers. Xenia High School had been destroyed. It was a blessing that the tornado hit after the students had left for the day, and not earlier, or there would have been many more injuries and deaths. In the following weeks, Xenia students attended late afternoon/evening classes at Beavercreek High School after our classes were over for the day, and this continued for the rest of the school year. We were given permission to write messages to each other on our desk tops. Every desk top was covered with messages of good will from my classmates to the Xenia students. I wish I had some photos of those desk tops. I'm sure photos exist. (We didn't have cell phones with cameras in those days).
2. Dayton Daily News, April 11, 1974, Daily News Staff Writer Clem Hamilton, "Wrights' Memorabilia, Irises Survived Storm"
3. Dayton Daily News, March 17, 1903, by Katherine Ullmer, "Wright relative gives mementos".