Sandra McLeod Humphrey's Blog, page 5

1st Annual John 3:16 Giveaway Blog Hop!

Welcome to the 1st John 3:16 Giveaway Blog Hop! As one of the members of this great network of Christian Authors, I am excited to participate in this event! We have come together this week to showcase our books and to give you, our readers, a chance to win some great prizes as you “hop” from blog to blog. A different prize is offered at each blog site (no purchase necessary); however if you want to have a chance to win one of two Kindles the network is giving away, the only requirement is that you sign up for the John 3:16 ezine newsletter. (Located at the top right side column of the John 3:16 blog site.)

(See official rules here.)

At all the blogs, each author will ask you to eave a comment (and a valid email address) so they may contact you if you win a prize offered on their blog site.

May I also suggest that you show your love and appreciation to each blog host by either following them on Twitter, or “liking” them on Facebook or even subscribing to their blog. It won’t help your odds of winning a prize but I know each author would be thrilled and very encouraged!

Welcome to my DARE TO DREAM BIG! Blog which is an educational/inspirational blog for all ages! Each week Willoughby and I share a brief biography of someone who has overcome great obstacles to attain their dream and we hope that these stories will encourage you to follow your own hearts and never give up your own dreams!

You’ll have 8 chances to win an autographed copy of one of my books because I’m giving away 8 books! Each winner can select a book from my website and I will autograph the books according to their instructions. All you have to do is leave a comment below and be sure to include your e-mail address, so I can contact you in case you’re one of the 8 lucky winners!

I also invite you to connect with me via the following links and I’ll return the favor:

FB Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/KidsCanDoIt2

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sandra305

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sandra305/

Thanks so much for joining our John 3:16 Blog Hop and don’t forget to drop by these blogs for the chance to win even more prizes: 

So tell your friends about the John 3:16 Giveaway Blog Hop! It’s going to be a great week of fun!

Just click on the links below to go from blog to blog! Happy hoppin’!

Blog Hop Participants:

Lorilyn Roberts (John 3:16 Network Blog) – http://john316mn.blogspot.com/
Lynn Dove – Word Salt (Host blog) – http://wordsalt.wordpress.com/
Laura J. Davis – http://interviewsandreviews.blogspot.com/
Paulette Harper – http://www.pauletteharperjohnson.blogspot.com/
Carol A. Brown – http://connectwithcarolbrown.blogspot.com/
April Gardner – http://www.aprilwgardner.com/
Sue Russell – http://www.suerussellsblog.blogspot.com/
Thomas Blubaugh – http://tomblubaugh.net/
Susan F. Craft – http://historicalfictionalightintime.blogspot.com/
Heather Bixler – http://heatherbixler.com/
Joy Hannabass – http://splashesofjoy.wordpress.com/
Deborah Bateman – http://www.DeborahHBateman.com
Kimberley Payne – http://www.fitforfaith.blogspot.com/
Rose McCauley – http://www.rosemccauley.blogspot.com
Lisa Lickel – http://livingourfaithoutloud.blogspot.com/
Alice J. Wisler – http://www.alicewisler.blogspot.com/
Amanda Stephan – http://www.thepriceoftrust.com/
Saundra Dalton – http://gracetolivefree.blogspot.com/
Tracy Krauss – http://www.tracykraussexpressionexpress.com/
Ashley Wintters – http://ashleyschristianbookreviews.blogspot.com/
Deborah McCarragher – http://www.godmissionpossible.blogspot.com/
Lorilyn Roberts – http://lorilynroberts.blogspot.com/
Anita Estes – http://anita-thoughtsonchristianity.blogspot.com/
Martin Roth – http://www.military-orders.com
Janet Perez Eckles – http://www.janetperezeckles.com/blog
Kenneth Winters – http://www.lostcrownofcolonnade.com/
Eddie Snipes – http://www.eddiesnipes.com/
Diane Tatum – http://tatumlight-tatumsthoughts4today.blogspot.com/
Janalyn Voight – http://janalynvoigt.com/
Alberta Sequeira – http://www.albertasequeira.wordpress.com/
Tammy Hill – http://tammyhillbooks.blogspot.com/p/blog-hop.html
Marcia Laycock – http://www.writer-lee.blogspot.com/
Julie Saffrin – http://juliesaffrin.com/category/blog/
Nike Chillemi -  http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/
Elaine Marie Cooper – http://ReflectionsInHindsight.wordpress.com
Sidney W. Frost – http://christianbookmobile.blogspot.ca/
 Jairus B. King – http://ministerjking.blogspot.com
 Bill Burt - http://kotbooks.blogspot.com/
 Kathy Eberly - http://authorkathyeberly.blogspot.com/
 Bob Saffrin - http://bobsaffrin.com/
 Theresa Franklin – http://theresa-lifesjourney.blogspot.com/
 Ray Lincoln – http://blog.raywlincoln.com/
 Lilly Maytree -  http://www.lillymaytree.blogspot.com/
 Valerie King – http://www.valeriekingbooks.com
 Yvonne Pat Wright – http://www.spicetoeternity.co.uk/
 Pauline Creeden -  http://fatfreefaith.blogspot.com/
 Katherine Harms -  http://livingontilt.wordpress.com
 Brenda Wood – http://heartfeltdevotionals.wordpress.com/
 Deborah Malone – http://deborahsbutterflyjourney.blogspot.com/
 Melissa Main –  http://www.mainwriters.com/
  Kevin Main – http://mainchristianbooks.com/
  Sandy Humphrey – http://www.kidscandoit.com/blog/
  Felice Gerwitz – http://www.writingandpublishingblog.com/
 Hallee Bridgeman – http://www.bridgemanfamily.com/hallee
 Lisa Mills – http://www.authorlisamills.com/blog/

DARE TO DREAM BIG! From Independent Young Girl to Pioneering, Award-Winning Naturalist

Imagine This: As a child, when other children run away from snakes and spiders, you crouch down to take a closer look. You love everything in nature, but people tell you that you can’t become a scientist because you’re a girl. So what do you do?

You’re born May 27, 1907, the youngest of three children, in Springdale, Pennsylvania, where you grow up in a tiny wooden house with no electricity, heat, or plumbing on sixty-five acres of land.

Your mother, a former school teacher, is an avid reader and shares her knowledge of natural history, botany, and birds with you. She also passes on a deep appreciation of the beauty and mystery of the natural world and a lifelong love of nature and all living things.

While your brother and sister are in school, you and your mother spend your time outdoors walking the woods and orchards, exploring the springs, and naming flowers, birds, and insects. And at night you and your mother hunt for spiders working on webs or moths that venture out while the birds sleep.

 Your mother encourages you to use your imagination, and one of your artistic ventures is a little book of animals you draw and color yourself. The book reflects the strong relationship that exists between you and the wild creatures pictured in your book, and you identify all the woodland creatures as your friends.

Your mother remains your best friend and strongest supporter throughout your life. Later on when you’re recognized for your accomplishments both as a scientist and as a writer, you acknowledge that your mother has been the dominant influence in your life.

Because of your family’s meager means, school has never been a happy place for you. You’re teased because of the hand-me-down clothing you wear, and you count the minutes until you can go home and spend your time with your books, the farm animals, your many dogs, and the outdoors. In some ways your family’s marginal economic status makes it easier for you to be independent since you’re under no pressure whatever to conform to the social values of your  peers.

Determined to be a writer after high school, you enter the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College). You don’t think you have enough imagination to write fiction, so you turn to biology where there’s always more than enough material for your writing.

After graduating from the Pennsylvania College for Women in 1929, you study at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, and earn your MA in zoology from Johns Hopkins University in 1932.

In 1936 you take a job as a writer and marine biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (which later becomes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), and over the next fifteen years, you’re promoted to staff biologist and editor-in-chief of all their publications. Your enthusiasm for nature is matched only by your love of writing and poetry, and your job enables you to combine both your loves: writing and science.

Your book The Sea Around Us (1952) is so successful that you can retire and become a full-time writer. Your most important book Silent Spring (1962) is about the use of chemical pesticides, and it changes forever the way people think abut their world.

Following four years of research, you’ve identified the devastating and irrevocable hazards of DDT, one of the most powerful pesticides the world has ever known, and you conclude that DDT should be banned. Your book causes a firestorm of controversy and helps set the stage for the U.S. Environmental Movement of the late 20th century.

 By the time you die of cancer on April 14, 1964, at age fifty-six, you have become an award-winning scientist and writer and your work has begun a worldwide revolution!

 “Most of us walk unseeing through the world.”

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: Your dedication to the beauty and integrity of life continues to inspire new generations to protect the living world and all its creatures.

Did You Know  that Rachel Carson had her first story published in a magazine when she was ten years old?

 Something to Think about: How do you think not fitting in with her peers during her early school years influenced Rachel Carson, both during her school years and later on in her life?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shy Young Man to International “Man of Peace”

Imagine This: It’s 1893 and you’re a 24-year-old Indian lawyer practicing in South Africa. While taking a train, you’re asked to leave your first-class compartment and go to the third-class compartment because of the color of your skin. You refuse because you have paid for a first-class ticket. You’re forcefully removed from the train, your luggage is confiscated, and you’re left in the bitterly cold waiting room of the railway station with only a small suitcase. What do you do? Do you fight for your rights or do you return to India and forget the injustices in South Africa?

You’re born on October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, the youngest of four children and you’re influenced by your father’s politics and your mother’s religion. As a young boy, you’re shy and afraid of many things, including the dark and you have to sleep with the lights on.

In 1887 your family reluctantly allows you to leave India to study law in London, and to satisfy your mother, you  make a solemn vow not to touch wine, women, or meat. Despite your attempts to fit in, you still feel like an outcast in the city.

You feel very much alone, a foreigner in a strange country. You try to feel more comfortable and secure by transforming  yourself into an English gentleman–living in fancy rooms and wearing fancy clothes. You learn to speak perfect English, you take violin lessons, and you even learn how to dance.

 But you still feel a deep conflict between your inner self and your outer self. Remembering the values of your home, you decide to live a simpler life. You give up your fancy rooms, you cook your own meals, you walk everywhere you go,  and you join the Vegetarian Society of London. These changes make you much happier although you still remain awkward and shy.

You finally pass your law exams and, after three years in London, you return home to India in 1891 to set up a law practice in Bombay. Your shyness and problems with the Indian courts, however, lead you to accept a low-paying position as a legal adviser in South Africa in 1893 where you experience racism firsthand.

 Traveling by train to Pretoria shortly after your arrival in South Africa, you’re told to leave the first class car, for which you have a ticket, because you’re not white. When you refuse to go to another compartment, you’re thrown off the train.

Outraged by the experience, you resolve to fight back legally. Overcoming your shyness, you sue the railroad and win a grudging victory. The law is then changed so that all Indians can sit in the seat to which their tickets entitle them, provided they wear English-style clothing.

Word of this victory spreads quickly, and soon you become a champion of Indian rights in South Africa and indirectly a spokesperson for all the powerless. You remain in South Africa for the next twenty-two years, working to end the country’s discriminatory legislation against people of color.

You and your followers work for the rights of black and Indian people and also for the rights of women. You do legal work for free, you nurse sick people abandoned during a plague, and you comfort the dying. You believe that all people are your brothers and sisters and that their suffering is your suffering.

By believing in the power of love and treating everyone as your family, you discover that you’re no longer shy and no longer afraid of anything.

When you’re assassinated on January 30, 1948, by a young Hindu dissident named Nathuram Godse as you walk to a prayer meeting where thousands of people are waiting for you, your last words are of forgiveness to your killer.

Your philosophies of nonviolence and peaceful protest inspire other leaders to pick up your torch! Both Martin Luther King’s nonviolent Civil Rights Movement in the United States and Nelson Mandela’s Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa use your techniques of civil disobedience and nonviolent, passive resistance to protest racial segregation and injustice. You inspire people around the world and change the lives of millions!

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

 Giving Back: Gandhi devoted his entire life to helping those less fortunate and working for equal rights for everyone.

Did You Know that  Gandhi spoke English with an Irish accent because one of his first teachers was an Irishman?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Gandhi was able to overcome his shyness and feelings of  insecurity as he became immersed in his campaign for equal rights?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Sharecroppers’ Granddaughter to Nobel Prize Winner

Imagine This: Your maternal grandparents are sharecroppers and, at age thirteen, you get a job cleaning house for a white family after school to help with the family expenses. Dignity and diligence are important family values in your home, but how far can a young African American girl go in a world where racial discrimination is still such a predominant influence?

 You’re born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, the second of four children. Your maternal grandparents  are sharecroppers in Alabama, but your parents move north to Lorain, Ohio, to escape the racism of the South.

Your mother is a patient but determined woman. When an eviction notice is put on your house, she tears it off. And when there are maggots in the flour, she writes a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt. Your father, a shipyard welder, is a hardworking man, but he distrusts all white men and does his best to keep white people out of his life.

As you grow older, you hear many family stories about discrimination and injustice, but there is one story in particular that leaves a lasting impression. Your family tells how when you were two years old, they were unable to pay the monthly rent of four dollars, and their angry landlord tried to burn down the house with the family still inside. You will remember that story about hatred all your life and will later include it in your writing.

Your family is proud of their heritage, and storytelling is the main form of entertainment. This is where you hear the songs and tales of southern black folklore that you’ll later use in your writing. Even though your family is poor, your parents make the children feel very important, and your father teaches you to always have pride in your work.

You’re an excellent student and, when you graduate with honors in 1949 from Lorain High School, you become the first woman in your family to go to college. After enrolling at Howard University in Washington, D.C., you shorten your middle name Anthony to Toni, and from then on, everyone calls you Toni.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in English from Howard University in 1953 and a master’s degree in English from Cornell University in 1955, you teach for several years.

You marry in 1958, but it’s not a happy marriage and you join a writing group to ease your unhappiness. For one of your writing assignments, you write  a story about a little African American girl you remember from your childhood who had wanted blue eyes. You write about the whole issue of physical beauty and the pain that comes from wanting to be someone else.

In 1965 you accept an editorial job with the Random House publishing office in Syracuse, New York, and move there with your two sons. You continue to work on your story about the little black girl who wanted blue eyes and, recognizing your talent, an editor transfers you to its New York City office in 1968.

You become a senior editor—-the only black woman to hold such a position at that time. You rewrite your story as a novel and in 1970 it is published as The Bluest Eye. You publish your second novel, Sula, in 1973, a novel that examines the importance of friendships between black women.

Your Song of Solomon, a novel about a young black man discovering the richness of his ancestry, is published in 1977 and becomes a best-seller. Tar Baby (1981) remains on the New York Times best-seller list for four months and your novel Beloved (1987) wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988.  In 1993 you receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, the eighth woman and the first black woman to ever receive the award.

Although you’re one of literature’s greatest women, you never forget your students. Even on the day you receive the news about being awarded the Nobel Prize, you still return to teach your classes at Princeton University.

“I take teaching as seriously as I do my writing.”

Toni Morrison (1931-    )

 Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Toni Morrison

 Giving Back:  Although America’s history of racism and slavery is central to Toni Morrison’s novels, her novels transcend these issues to envelop truths about the human condition and the problems we all face.

 Did you know that  when Toni Morrison entered first grade, she was the only black child in her class and the only child who could already read?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think her teaching was as important to Toni Morrison as her writing?

 

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From to Uneducated Sailor to Controversial “Hero”

Imagine This: You have a theory that boldly contradicts something that everyone else believes to be true: You believe that you can reach the East by sailing west. You believe that your theory is correct, but if it proves to be wrong, it will bring you humiliation, financial ruin, and possibly death. So what do you do?

You’re born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451, the oldest of five children. You have little schooling, so you don’t learn to read or write as a young boy. But you do love to study maps and you do love the sea. You vow that as soon as you’re old enough, you’ll go to sea.

In your early teens you become a sailor and travel to Greece and Portugal. While in Portugal, you study the works and maps of ancient and modern geographers until you’ve taught yourself all you can learn about navigation and mapmaking. The more you learn, the more convinced you become that the Atlantic Ocean is not populated by sea monsters and can be mastered.

You’re fascinated by Marco Polo’s accounts of his journey to Asia and all the riches he found there, but you believe that the quickest and most direct route to the East is by sailing westward across the unknown waters that are called the Sea of Darkness.

Your objective is not to prove the earth is round, for by the end of the 15th century, most educated people know the earth is a sphere. Your primary objective is to find a more direct route to the riches and rare spices of the East.

You ask King John II of Portugal to finance your expedition, but after consulting with his advisers, he denies your request. After King John II refuses to finance your expedition, you ask King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. After several requests, they finally agree to finance your voyage.

The Spanish rulers give you three small ships and pay for ninety crewmen and supplies. In 1492 you and your crew set out, but once you’re out of sight of land, your men grow fearful, so you devise a false set of charts to show the crew so they won’t know how far they’re actually going.

In spite of the false set of charts, after thirty-four days at sea, your men became increasingly restless and begin to threaten mutiny. You convince your crew to wait three more days, and the very next day they see tree branches floating in the water and realize that land is close.

When you go ashore on October 12, 1492, you proclaim the land part of Spain and declare its inhabitants to be Spanish subjects. You’re puzzled by the “easterners” who are dark-skinned and wear little clothing. You call them “Indians” because you believe you’re in India, but they’re not as Marco Polo had described them. Nor do you find Marco Polo’s “cities of gold” or any “pagodas with golden roofs.”

You make three more voyages after that. You travel to the islands of the Caribbean Sea and explore the northeastern tip of South America and the eastern coast of Central America. You never actually set foot on North American soil, but you do make it as far north as Cuba, only ninety miles from Florida.

You die on May 20 1506, and after five centuries, you still remain one of the most famous but also one of the most controversial figures in history. You have been criticized for your savage exploitation of the native inhabitants and the destruction of their cultures, but you have also been praised as an explorer who played a key role in helping to spread European civilization across a significant portion of the earth.

You have been described as one of the greatest mariners of all time, a visionary genius, a national hero, an unsuccessful entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist obsessed with your quest for gold and power.

But, regardless of how people feel about you, perhaps we can all agree that few events have altered the course of history as dramatically as your colonization of the Americas. You were a man of vision and courage in the face of uncertainty.

“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.”

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: It’s doubtful that Columbus ever really gave anything back in the philanthropic sense of the term as his objectives were predominantly focused on his own self-aggrandizement.

Did You Know  that Columbus Day was first celebrated in 1792 in New York and became a national holiday in 1937?

 Something to Think about: How do you feel about Columbus?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From to Uneducated Sailor to Controversial "Hero"

Imagine This: You have a theory that boldly contradicts something that everyone else believes to be true: You believe that you can reach the East by sailing west. You believe that your theory is correct, but if it proves to be wrong, it will bring you humiliation, financial ruin, and possibly death. So what do you do?

You're born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451, the oldest of five children. You have little schooling, so you don't learn to read or write as a young boy. But you do love to study maps and you do love the sea. You vow that as soon as you're old enough, you'll go to sea.

In your early teens you become a sailor and travel to Greece and Portugal. While in Portugal, you study the works and maps of ancient and modern geographers until you've taught yourself all you can learn about navigation and mapmaking. The more you learn, the more convinced you become that the Atlantic Ocean is not populated by sea monsters and can be mastered.

You're fascinated by Marco Polo's accounts of his journey to Asia and all the riches he found there, but you believe that the quickest and most direct route to the East is by sailing westward across the unknown waters that are called the Sea of Darkness.

Your objective is not to prove the earth is round, for by the end of the 15th century, most educated people know the earth is a sphere. Your primary objective is to find a more direct route to the riches and rare spices of the East.

You ask King John II of Portugal to finance your expedition, but after consulting with his advisers, he denies your request. After King John II refuses to finance your expedition, you ask King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. After several requests, they finally agree to finance your voyage.

The Spanish rulers give you three small ships and pay for ninety crewmen and supplies. In 1492 you and your crew set out, but once you're out of sight of land, your men grow fearful, so you devise a false set of charts to show the crew so they won't know how far they're actually going.

In spite of the false set of charts, after thirty-four days at sea, your men became increasingly restless and begin to threaten mutiny. You convince your crew to wait three more days, and the very next day they see tree branches floating in the water and realize that land is close.

When you go ashore on October 12, 1492, you proclaim the land part of Spain and declare its inhabitants to be Spanish subjects. You're puzzled by the "easterners" who are dark-skinned and wear little clothing. You call them "Indians" because you believe you're in India, but they're not as Marco Polo had described them. Nor do you find Marco Polo's "cities of gold" or any "pagodas with golden roofs."

You make three more voyages after that. You travel to the islands of the Caribbean Sea and explore the northeastern tip of South America and the eastern coast of Central America. You never actually set foot on North American soil, but you do make it as far north as Cuba, only ninety miles from Florida.

You die on May 20 1506, and after five centuries, you still remain one of the most famous but also one of the most controversial figures in history. You have been criticized for your savage exploitation of the native inhabitants and the destruction of their cultures, but you have also been praised as an explorer who played a key role in helping to spread European civilization across a significant portion of the earth.

You have been described as one of the greatest mariners of all time, a visionary genius, a national hero, an unsuccessful entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist obsessed with your quest for gold and power.

But, regardless of how people feel about you, perhaps we can all agree that few events have altered the course of history as dramatically as your colonization of the Americas. You were a man of vision and courage in the face of uncertainty.

"By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination."

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: It's doubtful that Columbus ever really gave anything back in the philanthropic sense of the term as his objectives were predominantly focused on his own self-aggrandizement.

Did You Know  that Columbus Day was first celebrated in 1792 in New York and became a national holiday in 1937?

 Something to Think about: How do you feel about Columbus?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Serious Young Student to Mother of Modern Physics

Imagine This: You are a young Polish woman whose dream is to become a scientist, but in Poland women aren't even allowed to go to universities. So what do you do?

You're born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867, the youngest of five children. Your father is a professor of mathematics and physics, and your mother had been the director of a girls' boarding school.

The Polish people are struggling under the crushing yoke of the Russian tsars who rule them. Your family focus is on education and serving others and your parents believe that learning is the most exalted goal in anyone's life. They also believe that learning will keep Poland's intellect alive and restore her independence.

Your're just a young girl when you lose your mother to tuberculosis and your sister Zosia to typhus. To cope with these painful losses, you and your other sisters pretend to be genius doctors who discover a miracle cure.

Your dream is to study physics at the University of Paris (the Sorbonne), the most distinguished school of science in the world, so you and her older sister Bronia make a pact. You will work and help support Bronia through medical school and then after graduation, Bronia will help support you.

Finally, in September 1891, eight years after graduating at the top of your high school class, you're ready to continue your own education. With the blessings of your father, you pack your clothes and move to Paris where you live in a tiny, bare attic room—-freezing in the winter and broiling in the summer.

Two months later, having passed the exams, you're accepted as a student of physics at the Sorbonne. A brilliant student, you graduate first in your class with a degree in physics in 1893, the first woman to receive a master's degree in physics from the Sorbonne.

You're hired in 1894 to do a study of the magnetic properties of steel, and you meet Pierre, a noted physicist and the manager of the laboratory where you will conduct your research. You and Pierre spend every spare minute together discussing science, and a year later you're married.

In 1896 another scientist Antoine Henri Becquerel tells you and Pierre about the glowing rays he has seen in a brown lump of uranium ore called pitchblende. Pierre suggests that you use that for the subject of your doctoral degree.

You begin testing chemical elements to identify the substance causing the glow and a year later conclude that the mysterious substance is an unknown "radiant" element. You and Pierre announce the discovery of this new element in July 1898, and you name it polonium in honor of your native country Poland.

But there is something more powerful still trapped in the pitchblende. Later that year, on December 26,  you and Pierre announce the existence of a second element, more highly radioactive than any other known. You name it radium.

At the time, scientists believe that the atoms of elements are unchangeable whereas you and Pierre are proving that the atoms of radioactive elements are constantly changing and even transforming from one element into a completely different one. And as atoms of radioactive elements change from one element into another (the decay process), they release energy which you call "radioactivity."

In November 1903, you and Pierre and Henri Becquerel are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for your work on  radioactivity—-the first Nobel Prize awarded to a woman.

In 1911, you are awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery and isolation of polonium and radium.  This is the first time anyone has received the Nobel Prize twice and for two different sciences—-first physics, then chemistry.

You die on July 4, 1934, at age sixty-six of leukemia, brought on by your years of exposure to high level of radiation. And later you become known as the woman who helped unlock the secrets of the atom which revolutionized modern science and ushered in the nuclear age.

"Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: During World War I, Marie Curie and her daughter Irene took X-ray and radium therapy equipment onto the battlefields of France where over one million wounded soldiers were X-rayed for bullets and shrapnel. Knowing exactly where to operate, doctors were able to save countless lives.

Did You Know that  Marie Curie's notebooks are still so radioactive that they can't be handled?

 Something to Think about: When young Polish women were not even allowed to go to Polish universities, what do you think drove Marie Cure to want to continue her higher education?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Rebellious and Independent Thinker to The Father of Modern Physics

Imagine This: Although Newton's law of universal gravity still provides extremely accurate explanations of physical observations, you have a major issue with his theory because it's not consistent with your own special theory of relativity which predicts that space and time are relative, forming a four-dimensional continuum you call spacetime.

You're born March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, and you're so slow to learn to speak that your parents wonder if you might be mildly retarded. Behind your back, the family maid refers to you as "the dopey one."

 You're no model child. At age five you throw a chair at a tutor who quits on the spot. You also throw things at your little sister Maja. You're not very sociable, preferring to go your own way and do your own thing.

 Although your family is Jewish, you attend a Catholic elementary school where, as the only Jewish student, you're sometimes bullied.

You're a rebellious and independent thinker and resent having to memorize and learn things by rote. You prefer to learn things on your own in your own way, and you often tell people that your thoughts come to you in pictures rather than in words.

By the time you're fifteen, you're focused on science–especially physics with its new ideas about magnetism and electricity and light. You say later that that was the year  you became convinced that nature could be understood as a relatively simple mathematical structure.

You drop out of school at fifteen, three years before your graduation, partly because you hate school but also because of your family's financial problems.

After you leave school, you join your family in Italy and renounce your German citizenship. You then belong to no country until you became a Swiss citizen in 1901.

You fail the entrance exam the first time you take it for admission to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland because, although you do brilliantly in math and physics, you fail dismally in literature, zoology, botany, and French.

When you're finally accepted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1896, your academic record is never brilliant because you spend most of your time and energy on your own studies rather than on the studies assigned by the Institute. You don't care for such organized education, and you hate having to attend classes regularly and take exams.

 Aside from your grades being just average, you also antagonize some of your professors with your rebellious and independent attitude, and they refuse to write any letters of recommendation for you.

After your graduation in 1900, you have difficulty finding a job, so you take temporary teaching jobs. Then in 1902, with the help of a friend, you get a job with the Swiss patent office where you find time to pursue your own interests in physics and higher mathematics.

 In 1905 you lay the groundwork for the atomic age by developing the formula E=mc2 (energy=mass times the speed of light squared) which becomes probably the most famous formula in science.

You publish four papers in 1905 which revolutionize scientists' understanding of the universe. Space and time are redefined. You believe that energy and matter are basically the same thing and that you can convert one into the other. 1905 is a "miracle year" for you much like Isaac Newton's memorable year of 1666.

What you call your Special Theory of Relativity is considered by other scientists to be one of the most significant pieces of scientific work ever done. You have shown for the first time that there is a relationship between matter and energy and that one can be converted into the other.

You become world famous for your Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and for your General Theory of Relativity in 1916 which becomes the basis of modern nuclear development.

You have forever changed mankind's view of the universe, and on December 10, 1922, you're awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics.

By the time you die on April 18, 1955, at age seventy-six of heart failure, you are considered one of the greatest scientists of all time and one of the legendary figures of the twentieth century.

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: Einstein believed that the scientist had a moral responsibility to humanity and helped transform the image of the scientist from a highly specialized student of nature to a public personality deeply concerned about the fate of humanity.

Did You Know that Einstein's interest in science was triggered by a compass his father gave him when he was five years old?

Something to Think about: Einstein's thoughts came to him in pictures rather than words—how do your thoughts come to you?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Ordinary Working Woman to Civil Rights Activist

Imagine This: It's December l, 1955, and you're a 42-year-old black woman taking the bus home after work. It's been a long day and you're very tired. You sit in the first seat for blacks which is right behind the white section. After a few stops, a white man gets on the bus and looks for an empty seat, but there aren't any. Then the bus driver comes over to you and asks you to give up your seat to the white man. In the past, you've done this many times, but what are you going to do tonight? Are you going to give up your seat or are you going to refuse to move?

 You're born in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1913, the first of two children. Your father is a carpenter and your mother had once been a teacher.

Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, you hate the unfair rules that black people have to live by. Black children can't attend the same schools as white children. Black families can't eat in white restaurants or use white swimming pools or see movies at white theaters. And they can only use restrooms and drinking fountains with signs that say "Colored Only."

You're an excellent student and at age eleven you go to a private school for black girls run by a white woman from the North named Alice White who believes that black girls deserve a good education. Unfortunately, it closes down before you can finish high school.

A few weeks before your twentieth birthday, you marry Raymond, a barber, who shares many of your values. After your marriage, you move to Montgomery where you earn your high school diploma in 1933.

You and Raymond join the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP (the National Association for Advancement of Colored People), an organization that works to help black people gain their civil rights. You're elected its secretary and assist the chapter's president, Edgar Daniel Nixon.

You refuse to ride in the elevators in public buildings that are marked "Colored" and use the stairs instead. And, on hot days even though your throat is dry, you still walk right past the water fountains marked "Colored."

You also often walk the mile to and from work rather than ride the bus because the buses are worst of all. Black people have to get on at the front door and pay their fare, then get off the bus and walk to the back door and board the bus again. Sometimes the driver drives away before the black passengers reach the back door even after they've paid their fares.

If you do manage to get on the bus, you're allowed to sit only in the seats at the back of the bus because the seats in the front half are reserved for whites. And if a white person gets on the bus and there's no empty seat, the black person sitting closest to the white section is expected to give up his seat to the white person.

On Thursday evening, December 1, 1955, you leave work and start home after a long and tiring day as a seamstress. Your shoulders ache from being hunched over your sewing machine, and you decide to take the bus.

You sit in the first seat for blacks right behind the white section. After a few stops, all the seats are filled when a white man gets on. The bus driver tells you and the other three black people in your row to give up your seats to the white man because blacks and whites can't sit together in the same row. The other three blacks get up, but you decide it's time to stand up for yourself, and you refuse to move.

And thus begins the chain of events that leads to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Your arrest, the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasts for 381 days, your trial, and eventually the Supreme Court Ruling on December 20, 1956, that bus segregation is both unconstitutional and illegal.

Some people call you "the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement" because people all across the nation read about Montgomery and begin to follow your example. You have changed the lives of African Americans in Montgomery and all across America with one courageous act!

The Montgomery Bus Boycott helps launch the Civil Rights Movement which leads to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964. When you die in 2005, at the age of ninety-two, your casket is placed in the rotunda of the United States Capitol for two days, so the nation can pay its respects to the woman whose courage had changed the lives of so many. You are proof that the act of one person can indeed change the world!

"The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

 Giving Back: Rosa Parks worked for equal rights for African Americans through her work with many organizations such as the NAACP, the Montgomery Voters League, and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality).

Did You Know Rosa Parks was born the same year that Harriet Tubman died?

 Something to Think about: Why do you think Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus on December 1, 1955, when she'd given up her seat many times before to a white person?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week's true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!

 

 

 

 

DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Ostracized Scientist to “The Father of Modern Astronomy”

Imagine This: You believe that Copernicus was right and that the earth does revolve around the sun, and you set out to prove it at the risk of displeasing the Church and many of those in authority.

 You’re born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, the eldest of seven children of an old and noble Florentine family line that has fallen on hard times.

Your mother is well educated which is unusual for women of her day. And your father is a respected musician and an outspoken uncompromising man who defends his ideas regardless of whom he challenges or offends. From an early age, you’re taught by your father to think for yourself and to question authority.

Your family moves from Pisa to Florence, a cultural center, where you study Latin, Greek, mathematics, religion, music, and painting. Your constant questioning while still a student, earns you the nickname “The Wrangler.”

At seventeen you enroll as a medical student at the University of Pisa, and your financially strained family hopes you will become a rich doctor.

While in the Cathedral of Pisa three years later, your attention is drawn to a big lamp hanging from the cathedral ceiling which is swaying in a draft. You time its movements with the beat of your pulse and discover that each swing of the lamp, no matter how great or small, takes the same amount of time. At twenty years of age, you have recognized a simple truth, the Law of the Pendulum. You then go on to design the pendulum clock which advances the study of physics and astronomy.

 You give up the study of medicine because you’re more interested in matter, energy, motion, and force–the science of physics. Over the next several years, you master mathematics and physics with the help of a family friend, Ostilio Ricci, a professor of mathematics.

Your reputation is growing, and you return to the University of Pisa in 1589 as a professor of mathematics. You quickly make enemies, however, by challenging a nearly two-thousand-year-old theory of Aristotle’s.

Aristotle believed that if two different weights were dropped from the same height, the heavier weight would hit the ground first. You test this theory by dropping several weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. They fall at the same speed, and you observe that the longer an object falls, the faster it falls. But those who are loyal followers of Aristotle refuse to believe their eyes, and they force you out of the university.

When you build a telescope which allows you to see an object thirty-three times larger than its actual size, you begin to study the stars. And the more you study the stars, the more convinced you become that Copernicus was right—that the earth is not the center of the universe.

In 1610 you publish a small book, The Starry Messenger, in which you describe your observations, and you begin to make and sell your telescopes, so that people can verify your observations for themselves. But many people refuse to use your telescope, preferring to cling to their old beliefs.

Your heavenly explorations meet with powerful resistance because they’re in opposition to the beliefs long held by the Catholic Church. In 1616 Pope Paul V officially denounces the Copernican theory, and you are instructed to stop teaching Copernican cosmology. But by 1632, you can no longer deny the truth, and you publish Dialogue–your most famous work, which supports the work of Copernicus and ridicules the followers of Aristotle.

When you die in 1642 at age seventy-seven, you’re still considered guilty of spreading beliefs that are contrary to Church teachings, and Pope Urban VIII never forgives you for your disobedience.

It’s not until 1992, after a 13-year debate over the conflict between science and faith, that Pope John Paul II formally closes the Catholic Church’s case against you and acknowledges the truth of your findings and those of Copernicus.

In your uncompromising search for the truth, you usher in the scientific revolution and will eventually become known as “The Father of Modern Astronomy.” You are truly a man who changed the world!

“The earth does move.”

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

Giving Back: Galileo published his astronomical findings, even though he knew there could be serious repercussions from the Catholic Church, because he believed that it was important for people to know the truth.

Did You Know  that Galileo’s findings about falling weights helped Isaac Newton develop his Law of Universal Gravity?

 Something to Think about: Do you think Galileo’s persecution by the Catholic Church was simply a conflict between science and religion or do you think it was more a matter of a complex power struggle?

 

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!