What could become of a child like this?

In 1847, the seventh child was born to parents who had no idea how their son would impact the world.

The child suffered from scarlet fever and ear infections and was almost deaf as an adult.

When the child entered school at the age of 7, his teacher noticed that he was easily distracted, hyperactive, day dreamed and labeled him “difficult”. His mother took him out of school after 3 months and taught him the basics at home.

At the age of twelve, the boy talked his parents into allowing him to sell newspapers and candy on The Grand Trunk Railroad Line. The family needed the extra income to meet their financial needs.  He used the stations teletype to correspond for news and printed his own newspaper to sell. He also had a small laboratory in the baggage car that caught fire during one of his experiments. That ended his selling on the train, but he went along the railway to the stations and sold to onboarding passengers.

He was nineteen years old when he saved a three-year-old child from being struck by a runaway train. The father, station agent, J.U. MacKenzie, was so thankful that he trained and hired this youth as a telegraph operator. He then began experimenting with the telegraph instruments.

He was fired from another early job for spilling chemicals all over the boss’s desk during an experiment.

His first patented invention was the automatic vote recorder. We went on to invent several stock machines, an early form of a copy machine, the phonograph, carbon transmitter, carbon lamp, incandescent light bulb, motion picture camera, and a way to spread electricity to the public. He also came up with the battery that would store energy when electricity was not available.

This remarkable person was Thomas Edison.

In 1914 a fire destroyed over half of Thomas Edison’s Laboratory buildings. The damages were seven million dollars and the insurance only covered two million. This greatly impacted him and the 7,000 employees who worked at these laboratories.

After reporting to the fire and watching firefighters work to contain it, Edison remarked, “Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”

 He immediately started planning and rebuilding.

He also noticed that the firefighters found it difficult to see during the fire and invented a design of the portable searchlight that beamed for miles.

Always nurture the best in others. You have no idea what hidden treasures that they possess.

Thomas Edison later remembered, “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”

http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/thomas-edison 

https://www.biography.com/people/thomas-edison-9284349 

https://njhistory.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/hello-world/