Aircraft Maintenance

“So well attuned to the roar of the two-cycle, four-cylinder [Roberts] engine had her ear become that the sound would tell her when the top power output had been attained.”
— George Shane, Des Moines Register

Mary Heidenreich Solbrig was a gardener, a cook, a church organist, a seamstress, a wife, and mother. She intuitively understood machinery and was good with hand tools. Her husband, Oscar, was a devoted family man and a skilled aviator. Their mutual interests in all things mechanical made them a remarkable team, trusting each other’s judgment as if their lives depended upon it. In fact, between 1911 and 1917, it did.

Oscar A. Solbrig immigrated to Davenport, IA, from Germany during the 1870s, set up a repair shop, and married Mary Heidenreich in 1894. Their cultural and religious heritages were similar, but what uniquely bound them together was a shared talent working with machines. They worked side by side, living in the back of his shop. They raised three children; Alfred, Hope, and Ruth. Fortunately, their private and professional lives have been chronicled in several newspaper interviews with the children as well as Mary’s personal journal. “Mama and dad . . . repaired guns, and bicycles,” recalls Ruth. “They often filed saws and sharpened blades and scissors. One time a man came in and he had a saw he wanted filed. Dad was ready to go back and file it but he said, ‘I want the woman to do it. She did such a good job.’ “

The lure of the air
The Solbrigs briefly lived in Washington, IA, during 1899, where Oscar helped Frank Brinton construct parts for his invention of a lighter-than-air ship to be exhibited at the local fair. The dirigible never made it off the ground, but Oscar’s mind soared. Mutually interested in the “new science of aviation,” the Solbrigs subscribed to aeronautical magazines to keep abreast of the latest technology, from balloons to aeroplanes. By 1910, the Solbrigs were both in their 40s, and their children were finishing high school. It was the Pioneer Aviation Exhibition Era (1908-1915) and the Solbrigs succumbed to the lure of the air.

Oscar’s goal was to fly professionally, earning $300-$500 a day while on tour in the exhibition flying circuit. A good season of “air-circus” flying easily surpassed the annual income from their shop. The risks of “cracking up” an aeroplane were well known to Oscar and Mary. They decided that they could diminish their chances for mechanical failures with Mary assigned as Oscar’s mechanician.

In 1911 Oscar took flying lessons from the Glenn Curtiss aviation school at Rockwell Field, San Diego. Mary was left to run the shop, and clear out the attic of their large home in Davenport where they planned to build a flying machine of their own. “The two of them always worked together on everything,” observed their daughter, Hope. Ruth concurred. “I don’t think [dad] would have been very much interested by himself.”

Hope remembered them “busy as bees” building the huge Curtiss biplane in the attic and in their living room. Oscar insisted upon a four-cylinder, two-cycle, 50-hp Roberts engine.