Sandra McLeod Humphrey's Blog, page 6
March 14, 2012
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!
March 7, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Independent Child to Independent Painter and 20th Century American Legend
Imagine This: You often find beauty in things that most people ignore or never even notice. You don't like formal art classes, you don't like your art teachers to touch up your paintings, and you eventually develop your own art style so that you can express on canvas what you see in your mind and feel in your heart.
You're born on a Wisconsin farm in 1887, the second of seven children. Right from the very beginning, you're keenly aware of colors and patterns that others around you don't even notice.
You want to touch and feel everything, and when you're very young, you put dirt in your mouth to see what it tastes like.
You're also very independent with a mind of you own. If your sisters wear ribbons, you don't. And if they wear their hair up, you wear yours down.
You prefer your father's love of the land to your mother's love of books and spend a great deal of your time outdoors where you grow up independent and free spirited. Nature becomes a very important part of your life and later your work.
You don't like taking art lessons because your teacher insists that her students copy pictures from a stack of prints she keeps in her cupboard. You prefer to paint imaginary scenes and you like experimenting with shading and light and mixing colors to get just the right effect.
By the time you're thirteen, you know you want to be an artist, and you resent it when your teachers touch up your paintings because you want other people to see things just as you see them.
In your teens, while other girls are taught to be passive and submissive, you continue to be the same independent, self-assertive person you've always been.
You have never been willing to live your life according to rules that make no sense to you and you're not about to begin now. At one point, you would have been expelled from your boarding school if you had earned just one more demerit!
Your art teacher at the University of Virginia, Alon Bemont, inspires you as no one ever has before. He speaks about shades of color and flowing lines as a way to express feelings and even plays music during his classes for his students to express visually on their canvases.
You begin to experiment with the notion of abstract art and practice filling the empty space with harmony and beauty. Always inspired by nature, flowers are one of your favorite subjects and you paint them so large that even busy New Yorkers stop and appreciate their beauty.
You love the New Mexico desert and you spend a great deal of your time painting the stones and feathers found there as well as the bones left by decaying animals.
Although you know many famous artists, you never copy their styles or join their groups. Your paintings are like your children, and you express on canvas what you see in your mind and feel in your heart.
By the time you die on March 6, 1986, at age 98, you have become one of the twentieth century's greatest painters and both your life and your work reflect your own personal integrity and courage to always be your own person.
Although you rarely signed your artwork, you have left your mark on twentieth-century art in America and throughout the world.
"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say in any other way—things I had no words for."
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)
Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
http://www.biography.com/people/georgia-okeeffe-9427684/videos/georgia-okeeffe-mini-bio-2168460595
Giving Back: Georgia O'Keeffe believed that her painting "is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me."
Did You Know that after her death, Georgia O'Keeffe's ashes were scattered to the wind over her beloved New Mexico desert?
Something to Think about: How did Georgia O'Keeffe's independent spirit influence both her life and her art?
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!
March 1, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From High School Dropout to Aviation Pioneer
Imagine This: It's 1896 and you're seriously ill with typhoid fever. Your brother is at your bedside reading an article about the death of a famous German glider pilot and, because of this article, your lives will never be the same again!
You're born in Dayton, Ohio, on August 19, 1871, the fourth of five children. Your father Milton is a minister and your mother Susan can build or fix almost anything. You and your older brother Wilbur look to your mother for mechanical expertise and to your father for intellectual challenge.
Even as very young children, you and your brother Wilbur are interested in any kind of mechanical device. Although you leave home every morning to go to kindergarten, your family is stunned to learn that, instead of going to school, you stop by each morning at the home of a neighbor boy where you and he play with an old sewing machine every day.
In your teens you work for a printer for two summers and then drop out of high school your junior year to open your own print shop. Your dream of publishing a newspaper comes true in 1889 with the publication of the West Side News, a weekly paper. Wilbur does the editing while you print and sell it.
In 1892, you and Wilbur want a new challenge, so you open a bicycle repair shop and three years later, you create a company to manufacture bicycles.
In August 1896, you become seriously ill with typhoid fever and while Wilbur is reading at your bedside, he comes across an article about the German inventor and engineer Otto Lilienthal and his flying machine. And your lives will never be the same again!
Both you and Wilbur are convinced that there must be a way for humans to fly and you both spend many hours watching birds in flight. You notice that some birds are able to soar for long periods of time without flapping their wings and you wonder how this is possible.
You study all the inventors who have tried to build flying machines and observe that curved wings, like those of the birds, apparently develop more lift than flat ones, so you build a double-winged glider which you intend to fly as a kite.
As you study lift and control, you realize that you'll need a larger place for your experiments. The United States Weather Bureau suggests the Outer Banks of North Carolina and those long narrow islands seem perfect for your experiments. The wind off the ocean blows steadily almost all the time and as far as you can see, there is nothing but gently sloping sand dunes.
You spend the winter of 1899 and the spring and summer of 1900 building a large glider. Late that summer you take the glider apart, pack all the pieces and parts into a large shipping trunk, and set off for the village of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where in 1900 you begin testing your glider.
You go back and forth between Kitty Hawk and Dayton while you work on the problems of the curvature of the wings and control. You also have to build a motor that meets your specifications.
On September 23, 1903, you leave Dayton for your third trip to Kitty Hawk with what Wilbur calls your "whopper flying machine." Twenty-one feet long, wings stretching more
than 40 feet from tip to tip, the entire airplane weighs 605 pounds.
On December 14, 1903, you both toss a coin for the honor of making the first try. Wilbur wins the toss and his "flight" lasts just three and one-half seconds as the airplane rolls forward 40 feet, climbs 15 feet into the air, and then sinks back onto the sand, splintering several pieces of its wooden structure in the process.
You repair the plane and on Friday, December 17, 1903, it's your turn to try. The Flyer goes only 120 feet and is in the air only twelve seconds, but it has flown!
The world's First Flight has taken place on Friday, December 17, 1903, and is indeed a great moment in aviation history. No matter how fast, how big, or how powerful the airplanes we use today, they are all direct descendants of that fragile, white-winged glider-with-a-motor that was the first successful powered airplane.
"If birds can glide for long periods of time, then … why can't I?"
Orville Wright (1871-1948)
Wilbur Wright (1867-1912)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
http://www.history.com/topics/wright-brothers/videos#wright-brothers
Giving Back: Orville and Wilbur Wright accomplished something that the vast majority of people believed to be impossible—they invented aircraft controls that allowed them to fly.
Did You Know that Orville Wright had a fear of heights?
Something to Think about: Why do you think Orville and Wilbur Wright never gave up during their four long years of experimentation and setbacks?
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!
February 22, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Independent Young Girl to “Saint of the Poor”
Imagine This: At the age of twelve you receive a call from God to become a nun and serve the poor in India. At age 17 you do become a nun and you do go to India. Then in 1946 you receive your second call from God–to leave the convent and live among the poorest of the poor. Do you accept this second call?
You’re born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Yugoslavia, August 26, 1910, the youngest of three children. Athough you’re always obedient, you’re also very independent and very much your own person. You always act according to your own conscience, regardless of what those around you are doing.
Your father Nikola is a wealthy merchant who gives generously to the Church and feeds the poor at his own table. He values family, hard work, and faith above all else and no one in need is ever turned away. This is a lesson that you never forget.
Your father dies when you’re eight, and, although the family is no longer wealthy, your mother Drane still continues her husband’s generous ways, giving food and help to the poor and the old. Your mother is a deeply religious woman, and you often accompany her into the town’s poorest neighborhoods where you give out food, medicine, clothes, and money to the poor.
While you’re praying one day at age twelve, you feel a “call” from God to become a nun and work in India. Moved by the photographs of starving families in India, you make your final decision at age seventeen to become a nun and you do go to India.
At age eighteen, you’re sent to the Loreto House in Darjeeling, India, to begin your novitiate, the first step toward taking your final vows as a nun. After you complete your training (novitiate), you take the name Teresa after Therese of Lisieux, a French nun who believed in the “little way”–working for good by carrying out very simple tasks joyfully.
After nine happy years in the Loreto Order, your life changes very dramatically on September 10, 1946, a day you later remember as your “Day of Inspiration.” You receive a second call from God–what you call “a call within a call”–to leave the convent and serve the poor while living among them. You are called to serve the poorest of the poor.
In 1948 the Vatican grants you permission to leave the Sisters of Loreto and work on the streets of Calcutta. You exchange your nun’s habit for a white cotton sari like those worn by the poor women in India. The sari has a blue border to remind you of the Virgin Mary, and you wear this uniform for the rest of your life.
In your simple white sari, you set out on foot each day to distribute food and medicines. Hunger and disease are everywhere. You find old and sick people left on the streets to die, eaten by rats and insects. And unwanted babies are thrown onto piles of garbage!
On October 7, 1950, the Pope gives you permission to set up a new order of nuns, the Missionaries of Charity. In addition to your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Missionaries of Charity add a new vow: “to give wholehearted, free service to the poorest of the poor.” This fourth vow is what sets your order apart from the other orders.
You lead very simple lives. Each nun owns only three saris, a pair of sandals, underwear, a crucifix, a bucket to wash in, and a prayer book. And you wake before 5:00 A.M. to pray before going out to work in the slums all day
In 1979, you’re awarded one of the most prestigious prizes of all, the Nobel Peace Prize. You accept the award in the name of the poor and use the money to feed the poor and build more homes for the homeless and people suffering from leprosy.
Some people call you the most powerful woman in the world because when you call, prime ministers and presidents around the world respond.
In 1990, you resign as the head of the Missionaries of Charity because of poor health, but in spite of your failing health, you continue to travel and work at the Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta.
When you die on September 5, 1997, at age 87, nearly half a million people of all religions–ordinary people as well as world leaders–come to say a final good-bye to you.
“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
Mother Theresa Documentary Online
Giving Back: Mother Teresa spent her entire life helping those who most needed her help.
Did You Know that Mother Teresa spoke fluent English, Albanian, Serbo-Croat, Bengali, and Hindi?
Something to Think about: Why do you think Mother Teresa was so willing to devote her entire life to helping the poor and sickly?
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 Independent Young Girl to "Saint of the Poor"
Imagine This: At the age of twelve you receive a call from God to become a nun and serve the poor in India. At age 17 you do become a nun and you do go to India. Then in 1946 you receive your second call from God–to leave the convent and live among the poorest of the poor. Do you accept this second call?
You're born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Yugoslavia, August 26, 1910, the youngest of three children. Athough you're always obedient, you're also very independent and very much your own person. You always act according to your own conscience, regardless of what those around you are doing.
Your father Nikola is a wealthy merchant who gives generously to the Church and feeds the poor at his own table. He values family, hard work, and faith above all else and no one in need is ever turned away. This is a lesson that you never forget.
Your father dies when you're eight, and, although the family is no longer wealthy, your mother Drane still continues her husband's generous ways, giving food and help to the poor and the old. Your mother is a deeply religious woman, and you often accompany her into the town's poorest neighborhoods where you give out food, medicine, clothes, and money to the poor.
While you're praying one day at age twelve, you feel a "call" from God to become a nun and work in India. Moved by the photographs of starving families in India, you make your final decision at age seventeen to become a nun and you do go to India.
At age eighteen, you're sent to the Loreto House in Darjeeling, India, to begin your novitiate, the first step toward taking your final vows as a nun. After you complete your training (novitiate), you take the name Teresa after Therese of Lisieux, a French nun who believed in the "little way"–working for good by carrying out very simple tasks joyfully.
After nine happy years in the Loreto Order, your life changes very dramatically on September 10, 1946, a day you later remember as your "Day of Inspiration." You receive a second call from God–what you call "a call within a call"–to leave the convent and serve the poor while living among them. You are called to serve the poorest of the poor.
In 1948 the Vatican grants you permission to leave the Sisters of Loreto and work on the streets of Calcutta. You exchange your nun's habit for a white cotton sari like those worn by the poor women in India. The sari has a blue border to remind you of the Virgin Mary, and you wear this uniform for the rest of your life.
In your simple white sari, you set out on foot each day to distribute food and medicines. Hunger and disease are everywhere. You find old and sick people left on the streets to die, eaten by rats and insects. And unwanted babies are thrown onto piles of garbage!
On October 7, 1950, the Pope gives you permission to set up a new order of nuns, the Missionaries of Charity. In addition to your vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Missionaries of Charity add a new vow: "to give wholehearted, free service to the poorest of the poor." This fourth vow is what sets your order apart from the other orders.
You lead very simple lives. Each nun owns only three saris, a pair of sandals, underwear, a crucifix, a bucket to wash in, and a prayer book. And you wake before 5:00 A.M. to pray before going out to work in the slums all day
In 1979, you're awarded one of the most prestigious prizes of all, the Nobel Peace Prize. You accept the award in the name of the poor and use the money to feed the poor and build more homes for the homeless and people suffering from leprosy.
Some people call you the most powerful woman in the world because when you call, prime ministers and presidents around the world respond.
In 1990, you resign as the head of the Missionaries of Charity because of poor health, but in spite of your failing health, you continue to travel and work at the Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta.
When you die on September 5, 1997, at age 87, nearly half a million people of all religions–ordinary people as well as world leaders–come to say a final good-bye to you.
"We can do no great things; only small things with great love."
Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
Mother Theresa Documentary Online
Giving Back: Mother Teresa spent her entire life helping those who most needed her help.
Did You Know that Mother Teresa spoke fluent English, Albanian, Serbo-Croat, Bengali, and Hindi?
Something to Think about: Why do you think Mother Teresa was so willing to devote her entire life to helping the poor and sickly?
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!
February 15, 2012
Liebster Blog Award: 5 Blogs You Should Check Out!
Liebster is German for dearest, beloved or favorite. This award is bestowed on blogs with less than 200 followers but deserve more attention.
What a great way to support fellow bloggers you admire!
Here are the rules that come with this award:
1. Thank the blogger who gave you the award and link back to them.
2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you've sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!
Five blogs I would like to recommend are:
1) Happy Birthday Author
Creating memorable family reading experiences by celebrating author and illustrator birthdays.
2) Read Aloud Dad – Reading The Best Children's Books!
Book reviews, tips and advice for parents and others who want to read with children and stimulate their kids to read. Strategies and solutions that work.
3) Story Quest Children's Books
Story Quest Children's Books is a special place for authors, parents, educators, illustrators and publishers who share a love for children's literature. "Our stories celebrate young children's magical, unbounded imagination."
4) Share a Story – Shape a Future
Building a community of readers, one person at a time.
5) Defenders League Blog
Fighting one Childhood Disease at a time. The Magic of Imagination Heals the Soul!
Thanks again to Pamela Courtney!
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From "Misfit" Student to One of the Most Influential Figures of the Millenium
Imagine This: You're considered "stupid" and a "misfit" by your teacher and even your doctor thinks there might be something wrong with your brain. You're fired from four jobs in one year, your co-workers make jokes about you, and your employers don't think you'll ever amount to much.
You're born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847, the youngest of seven children, and even as a young boy, your curiosity is always getting you into trouble. You always want to know "why!"
At age three, you fall into a grain elevator and almost drown in grain because you want to see how the elevator works. And, at age four, your father finds you squatting on some duck eggs in a cold barn to see if you can hatch the eggs instead of the mother duck.
You have very little formal education because your teachers think your constant questions are a sign of stupidity so, at age seven, your mother takes you out of school and teaches you at home.
Some of your neighbors call you "addled" because of your small body and unusually large head, and even the local doctor fears you may have "brain trouble."
You love to read chemistry books, and you try the experiments you read about to prove to yourself that the facts in the books are really true. At age ten, you set up a chemistry lab in your basement and, during one of the experiments, you set the basement on fire and nearly blow yourself up.
When you're twelve, you sell candy and newspapers on the local train to earn money to pay for the chemicals for your experiments. You set up a crude lab in the baggage car to do your experiments, but you're forced to stop your experiments when a stick of phosphorus starts a fire in the baggage car. The conductor throws you and all your equipment off the train at the next stop!
You're always experimenting and once you give a friend a triple dose of seidlitz powders, hoping that enough gas would be generated to enable him to fly. This results in terrible agonies for your friend and a whipping for you!
At sixteen, you're given the chance to learn how to be a telegraph operator and you become as fascinated by electricity as you had been by chemistry. Unfortunately, you're not a very dependable telegraph operator because your mind is usually more on the ideas in your head than on the work you're supposed to be doing. During your first year as a telegrapher, you're fired from four jobs because you spend so much of your time reading books, performing experiments, or catching up on your sleep.
In telegraphy circles, you become known as "The Looney" because you spend so much of your time reading and experimenting. The other telegraph operators laugh at you and make jokes about your shabby clothes and shaggy hair. And your employers consider you to be "an impractical dreamy young fellow who will probably never amount to much."
At age twenty-one, you change from experimenter to inventor and in 1876 you move to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where you establish your own research center. You gather together the best craftsmen and scientists you can find and put them to work in what you call your "idea factory."
A year later, you introduce your first great invention–the phonograph–and the rest, as they say, is history! In 1879, after 10,000 different unsuccessful experiments, you invent the incandescent light bulb which changes the way people live forever.
No other man does so much to apply scientific discovery to everyday life as you do with the inventions of the phonograph, the electric light bulb, the typewriter, the dictating machine, the electric dynamo, the motion picture camera, and so many others.
By the time you die in 1931 at age eighty-four, you have been granted more than a thousand separate patents and you're considered to be one of the greatest inventors the world has ever known.
"Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)
Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about Thomas Edison:
Giving Back: Edison's goal was always to improve the well-being of the common man, and, through his inventions, he has probably brought more comfort and pleasure into our daily lives than any other inventor in history.
Did you know that that Edison didn't learn to talk until he was almost four years of age?
Something to Think about: Why do you think Edison never got discouraged even after 10,000 unsuccessful experiments to invent the incandescent light bulb?
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!
February 8, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shy, Awkward Young Girl to "First Lady of the World"
Imagine This: As a young girl, you're shy, awkward, and have deep-seated feelings of insecurity and inferiority. Even your own relatives consider you homely and don't expect much of you. So do you give up and relinquish all your dreams?
You're born in 1884 in New York City, the oldest of three children, and although your family is wealthy, you have an unhappy childhood.
You're a shy child who feels rejected and neglected by your mother who is embarrassed by your lack of beauty and homely features. She calls you "Granny" even in front of visitors which makes you feel even more ugly and awkward.
Your father is your primary source of affection and comfort, but he's unreliable and has his own problems. He breaks many of his promises to you, he threatens suicide three times, and he finally has to be hospitalized for his alcohol problem.
Your mother dies when you're eight and you and your two younger brothers are sent to live with your stern and proper grandmother who is a strict disciplinarian and demands perfection from you. She also teaches you to hide your feelings and to cry only in private.
Your father dies when you're almost ten and losing both your parents leaves you with a sense of being abandoned and unloved that haunts you for many years.
You create a dream world to compensate for your unhappiness and your feelings of loneliness and insecurity. When you're fifteen, you're sent to a boarding school in England where your life changes dramatically.
You're taught to think for yourself and to look at the world around you in a different way. Social graces and physical beauty are not considered important and, instead, a critical mind and a willingness to help others are emphasized. For the first time in your life, all your fears leave you and your self-confidence begins to soar.
When you return home to your grandmother's home, however, you again become shy and insecure. The qualities of intelligence and friendliness that were so important at your school, are not valued at home and you once more become awkward and inhibited.
Just before your debutante party at age eighteen, one of your aunts tells you that you're the "ugly duckling" of the family and will probably never have any boyfriends. This only confirms the feelings of shame and inadequacy you're already feeling.
Your grandmother refuses to let you go to college, so you decide to compensate for your homely looks and feelings of inferiority by becoming useful to people. You begin to emphasize intellectual achievement and social responsibility.
You marry a distant cousin in 1905 and become an invaluable social adviser to him all his political life. When He's paralyzed by polio in 1921, you dedicate your life to his purposes and become his eyes and his ears.
When he's elected President of the United States, you work with him to obtain much-needed educational and social reform during the difficult years of the 1930s.
After your husband's death in 1945, you're named a U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly where you serve as chairperson of the UN's Human Rights Commission from 1947 to 1952.
In 1951, a national poll names you "the greatest living American woman." When you die at age seventy-eight in 1962 from tuberculosis, you will be remembered as a world leader in the fight for human rights and social reform. Your humanitarian efforts earn you the title of "First Lady of the World."
"One's philosophy is best expressed not in words but in the choices one makes in daily living."
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
Giving Back: Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated her entire adult life to helping the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nationalities.
Did You Know that Eleanor was President Theodore Roosevelt's niece and that he gave her away at her wedding to Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
Something to Think about: How do you think Eleanor's problems of shyness and insecurity influenced her later dedication to her humanitarian causes?
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!
February 1, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Illegitimate Son to "The Ultimate Renaissance Man"
Imagine This: Because you are illegitimate, you are denied the educational privileges of children born within a marriage. This means that you receive the basic elementary education for boys of your day, but you are not allowed to attend any of the new universities. So do you give up any dreams you might have that require a formal education?
You're born on April 15, 1452, the son of a peasant mother, Caterina, and a country gentleman, Ser Piero. Your father, Ser Piero, is a lawyer and a leading citizen of Vinci, Italy, but instead of marrying Caterina, he marries a woman of his own class.
By the time you're five, your mother has married someone of her own class, and you're living with your father and stepmother at your grandfather's house near the village of Vinci, twenty miles from Florence.
Since you're illegitate, you're denied the privileges of children born within a marriage. You receive the basic elementary education for boys of your day (reading, writing, and arithmetic), but you are not allowed to attend one of the new universities.
Instead, your "university" is the workshop of the famous Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio who takes you on as a fifteen-year-old apprentice and fosters your talents.
After you have been studying with Verrocchio for some time, you help paint a picture of St. John baptizing Jesus. Verrocchio has already finished most of the painting, but you paint one of the angels and complete the background. It is said that when Verrocchio sees your angel, he is so struck by how much finer it is than anything else in the painting that he never picks up a paintbrush again.
When you're twenty, you're accepted into the painters' guild but you begin projects only to abandon them. You enjoy sketching and planning the composition of the picture, but you don't particularly enjoy the long and meticulous process of painting itself, so many of your projects are left unfinished. And only seventeen of your paintings survive.
You begin writing in your famous notebooks when you're about thirty, and over the years, you fill thousands of pages with the outpourings of your amazing mind. In 1994, Bill Gates, chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, buys one of your notebooks for $30 million.
Your notebooks include drafts of letters, sketches for future paintings, plans for inventions, moral observations, designs for weapons, drawings of anatomy, and observations of nature.
Much of what you draw does not technically get invented for centuries: contact lenses, cars, bicycles, expressways, airplanes, helicopters, prefabricated houses, burglarproof locks, automatic door closers, submarines, life preservers, steam engines, and tanks.
When you die on May 2, 1519, at age sixty-seven, the King of France is at your bedside and you have become known as a man for all seasons: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, and so much more!
Although you've received very little formal education, you had such an inquiring mind and so many talents in so many areas that you become known as one of the greatest intellects in the history of mankind. You are considered "the ultimate Renaissance man"–an all-around genius whose contributions to the arts and sciences changed the world!
"There are three classes of people. Those who see; those who see when they are shown; those who do not see."
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
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Giving Back: There is almost no field of knowledge where Leonardo da Vinci has not made a contribution to the world: including anatomy, physiology, mechanics, hydraulics, physics, philosophy, mathematics, botany, optics, writing, and engineering.
Did You Know that Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa is probably the most famous painting in the world?
Something to Think about: How do you think Leonardo da Vinci's insatiable curiosity about how the world worked contributed to his impressive list of accomplishments?
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!
January 25, 2012
DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shy Young Girl to "Angel of the Battlefield"
Imagine This: The Civil War has begun and you are very disturbed by all the wounded soldiers returning from the battlefields. You want to help, so you begin collecting donations of food, bandages, medicine, and clothing for the soldiers, and you want to deliver them yourself where they are most needed: on the battlefield. The War Department is shocked. Women can't be allowed on the battlefields! So what do you do?
You're born on Christmas day in 1821 in North Oxford, Massachusetts, the youngest of five children. Your older brothers and sisters dote on you and teach you reading, writing, math, horseback riding, and carpentry.
Although you're a serious student, you prefer outdoor activities to the indoor pastimes "suitable" for young ladies at that time.
You're very bright, but you're also extremely shy. In an effort to cure your shyness, your parents send you to boarding school. Lonely and homesick, you lose your appetite and stop eating, so your family gives up and takes you home.
When you're eleven, your brother David falls from a roof while building a barn and is seriously injured. For the next two years you nurse him back to health because you believe that if somebody is suffering, you must do something about it.
When you're sixteen, phrenologist Lorenzo Fowler advises you to become a teacher to cure your shyness, and for ten years you teach school in a small Massachusetts town.
After Abraham Lincoln is elected president and the Civil War begins, you become very disturbed by all the wounded soldiers returning from the battlefields, so you place an ad in the newspaper asking for donations of food, bandages, medicine, and clothing. It isn't long before you have more materials than you can store, and you ask to deliver the supplies where they're most needed–on the battlefield.
The War Department is shocked. Women can't visit the battlefield! But you continue to ask until finally in July 1862, you obtain permission to travel behind the lines. You're given a pass for yourself and three volunteers, and you're also given carts and teams of mules for carrying the supplies.
You tend the sick in nursing stations set up in tents and wagons. You also insist on treating Confederate solders from the enemy's army which shocks the War Department. The men begin calling you the "Angel of the Battlefield."
While in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1869 to regain your health, you learn about the Red Cross–an organization that helps the sick and wounded during wartime without respect to nationality.
Inspired by what you've learned about the Red Cross in Europe, you help establish the Red Cross in the United States in 1881. You stress a peacetime mission for helping victims of floods, fires, earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, and epidemics.
For the rest of your life, you continue to help wherever help helping is needed–from the floods of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to the battlefields of the Spanish-American War.
By the time you die at the age of ninety-one, you have earned a well-deserved place in American history as a great humanitarian and the founder of the American Red Cross.
"I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing,
but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay."
Clara Barton (1821-1912)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
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Giving Back: Clara Barton served others her entire life and was still doing relief work well into her seventies.
Did You Know that Clara Barton loved all animals, especially cats, and that during the Civil War, Senator Schulyer Colfax sent her a kitten with a bow around its neck in appreciation for her work during the Battle of Antietam?
Something to Think about: Why do you think Clara Barton had such a strong need to help others?
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!
