Monday Reading Update

 Fall is here big time and I and Mother Nature are in our glory!

 I'm still reading Halloween Party and it was perfect for this time of year and a good mystery starring Hercule Poirot!  There will be a report next week as I will have finished it by then.

 Still reading this one too but almost done with it.

 I finished George Washington Carver, An American Biography by Rackham Holt published in 1945...below is the bookplate inside the front cover

 This was the best biography I have ever read and G.W. was the most fascinating and gifted individual that I have ever read about.  I remember hearing his name but not really much about him.  As with women and blacks, there wasn't much studied in school as the white male was the preferred "hero" and the smartest and the bravest....or so they wanted us to believe.

 This man overcame odds that most would have given up on long before.  He struggled and overcame, struggled and overcame and never lost his sense of humor, or his kindness or his sense of self and what his gifts were to him and for sharing with others.  In my mind, his contributions far outweigh Martin Luther King's.  George W. Carver did more for the black population and the South and they are still reaping those rewards today.  There are biographies out there but this one was written from interviews with him and those close to him.  There were other biographies written but many held fantasies and untruthes but Professor Carver didn't have the time nor the inclination to set them straight so before he died he worked with Rackham Holt to ensure there was one biography out there that "came straight from the horses mouth"!  And wasn't I the blessed receiver of this particular book?!?!  From where I sit right now having read many, many biographies over the years...this one far outshines all others and so does George Washington Carver.  In my mind, he was one of the greatest human beings that ever graced our planet and we all have much to be grateful to him for. 
A brief synopsis is that he was born into slavery, wanted to learn so badly that he never gave up and finally graduated from Iowa State University in Ames with a degree in Botany and Agriculture.  He spent time working at the University and later took a job with Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee in Alabama.  He worked at Tuskegee for the rest of his life and invented and created and taught and shared all his knowledge with everyone and anyone who wanted to learn.  He was a man who was strong in faith and walked the talk.  If you believe that "there are angels among us" then this man was one of them.  

I am tearing up writing this review...that's how profoundly it affected me.