George Washington Carver made the first computer! Out of a peanut! A PEANUT!

I have my first guest blogger, my daughter, Rachel. She wanted to share with the blogosphere her report on ... George Washington Carver.

Little George was born in Missouri sometime in 1864 and died on January 5th, 1943. He was a slave and got stolen. They managed to find him but could never find his mother. So, he lived with the Carver family. Young George couldn’t go to school every day because he lived very far away and because of his skin color. But he spent time outside learning about God’s creation and became a scientist.

George made 350 products from the peanut. His gravestone read, “He could of added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” He liked to wear a flower every day on his jacket and hated to wear shoes. George Washington Carver helped farmers rotate crops so that the plants would grow better. Mr. Carver invented over 100 ways to use sweet potatoes. He made milk, coffee, crayons, dye, soap, flour, paint, and ink. These were things that he discovered that they didn’t have until he made them.

At church we watched a DVD about Mr. Carver called “Man of Science, Servant of God.” I liked that he never gave up and kept trying even when people were mean because of the color of his skin. Like him, I want to be a leader and not follow things that aren’t right. He was a great Christian man because he helped people and loved God.

Some quotes from or about Dr. Carver, some from the above mentioned DVD:
"God gave them [the discoveries] to me; how can I sell them to someone else?"

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these"

"Learn to do common things uncommonly well."

"No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving something behind."

"It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success."

"He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."
-Inscription on George Washington Carver’s grave

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

"I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in."

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."

"We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts."

"We get closer to God as we get more intimately and understandingly acquainted with the things He has created. I know of nothing more inspiring than that of making discoveries for one's self."