CARLSBAD -- Katharine Wright Chaffee, a descendent of the two legendary brothers credited with inventing the fixed-wing airplane, was always proud of her family's legacy, her daughter said.

She enjoyed giving talks about her famous great-uncles -- Orville and Wilbur Wright -- and kept an autographed piece of their early plane on display in her home.

"As kids, we'd pull it down and … trace the signature with our fingers," said Katharine's daughter, Susan Chaffee. "That would be story time for us. She'd tell us all about it."

Katharine Wright Chaffee died June 17 from a heart attack in her Carlsbad home.

She was 84.

Born Nov. 10, 1922, in Kansas City, Miss., she spent most of her childhood with her grandmother in Colorado Springs, Colo.

"She was very independent, very strong-willed," said her cousin, Margaret Edwards-Brown.

During the summers, she often visited her great-uncle Orville at his vacation home on a Canadian island.

"She loved roaming around on that island," Edwards-Brown said. As for Orville, "It was a place for him to putter. He would invent things and fix things up," she added.

Years later, when Katharine Wright Chaffee enrolled in Oberlin College in Ohio, it was Orville who paid her tuition, her daughter said.

"She admired his mind very much," her daughter said. "He was a huge influence for her."

While at Oberlin, Katharine met E. Dugald Chaffee, who would later become her husband and a Presbyterian minister. The couple had two children, Bruce Gordon Chaffee and Susan Katharine Chaffee.

Katharine Wright Chaffee earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in Ohio and a master's degree in social work from Syracuse University in upstate New York. She also studied on her own, particularly the subject of Taoism, a religion developed from Chinese philosophy, her daughter said.

"She was very attuned to spirituality," her daughter said.

Years after her husband died, Katharine Wright Chaffee moved from upstate New York to Carlsbad with her friend, Dorothy Bosworth. An avid nature lover, she worked as a docent for Torrey Pines State Reserve.

Age never stopped her from enjoying the outdoors, family members said.

"She used to Boogie Board with my kids when she was in her 70s," her daughter said with a laugh, "much to their embarrassment."

A memorial service will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Aug. 25 at Heritage Hall in McGee Park, 258 Beech St.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.