Heartlifters for Moms Surprising Stories, Stirring Messages, and Refreshing Scriptures That Make the Heart Soar

Nurturing Creativity There were lots of different words folks used to describe "Little Al," rangingfrom "retarded, addled, and troublesome" to "precocious, mischievous, andcurious." Because he was frail at birth, with an abnormally large head, somefeared he was deficient. But his mother, Nancy Elliot, a devout Presbyterian,never gave up hope as she prayed for her seventh child. It didn't take long for his mother to recognize there was nothing wrong withAl's mind. In fact, he was a precocious and inquisitive child, asking endlessquestions about everything. Once, his family became alarmed when they realizedhe'd been gone for hours. After a frantic search, they found him in the barn,calmly sitting on a makeshift nest in a straw box, trying to hatch eggs. "If thehens and gooses can do it," he wanted to know, "why can't I?" Other early experiments had some serious consequences, causing the neighbors tolabel Al a troublemaker. At age six, he wanted to learn more about fire anddecided his dad's barn would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, it was abreezy day and, in no time, Al's little fire became a roaring inferno, ragingout of control. He barely got out alive, and the barn burned to the ground. But even that narrow escape wasn't about to stop this curious little guy'svoyage of discovery. He knew gas would inflate a balloon and decided he could dothe same thing with a person. So he gave several doses of Seidlitz powder (amild laxative) to a friend, believing it would generate enough gas to make himfloat through the air. Instead, his friend got quite sick and Al learned that,while Seidlitz powder didn't make people fly, it definitely put a ten-year-old"scientist" in the hot seat. A hands-on learner, Al was bored by classroom routine, doodling and daydreamingto wile away the hours. After only three months in school, he came home intears, telling his mom that he'd overheard his teacher say his mind was "addled"and that staying in school would be a waste of time. But his mother knew betterand went with Al to school the very next morning. Adamantly defending her brightson, she made her opinion of the teacher and school abundantly clear.Recognizing the potential of her son's vivid imagination, she primarilyhome-schooled Al after that painful incident. His mother saw books as the best way to nurture his passionate curiosity, andshe "implanted in his mind the love of learning." While Al never masteredspelling or math, he became a voracious reader, and a book she gave him helpedhim discover his passion for science. Years later, Al reflected, "I was always a careless boy, and with a mother ofdifferent mental caliber I should have probably turned out badly. But herfirmness, her sweetness, and her goodness were potent powers to keep me in theright path." As a teenager, Al became an entrepreneur, selling candy and produce andpublishing his own newspaper to help finance his experiments. No one wanted tobuy his first patent, which was for an electric vote-recording machine. Al's first significant invention, an improved stock ticker machine, sold forforty thousand dollars. His invention of the kinescope, a motion picture camera,paved the way for the movie industry. Although virtually deaf from the age oftwelve, his favorite invention was the phonograph. His mother, Nancy Elliot Edison, died before he reached the pinnacle of success.Little did she realize that her son's lifelong drive to find solutions toproblems would usher in a new age of technology, with more than a thousandpatents iWeiss, LeAnn is the author of 'Heartlifters for Moms Surprising Stories, Stirring Messages, and Refreshing Scriptures That Make the Heart Soar' with ISBN 9781582291017 and ISBN 1582291012.