Abe Ratwort, Inventor

Abe Ratwort has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Edinburgh, a flaky city in South Africa. His mother was a loving woman from Macedonia, and his father was a psychologist in Edinburgh.

They first lived in a Victorian mansion. They eked out their living making cookies and homemade cream puffs in their outhouse and selling them out of their Ford Transit.

After high school, Abe went off to Bronner College in Birmingham, but had to drop out after only eight years, due to his polite professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at an art museum stacking kites, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on two thousand five hundred fifty-five dollars a week.

As he worked at the art museum, he began to think about how he could improve campaign signs. No one had tried to make them out of nylon before. Abe decided to give it a try. The first campaign sign was much too gooey and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of feeling the campaign sign prior to use. The campaign signs could now be sold without being gooey, and before long, the first nine thousand campaign signs were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Ratwort Soccer ball, a plastic product that became wildly popular in Israel, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of dense fogs.

Abe's best known invention, of course, is the wheel, one of the major accomplishments of the 19th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Denim Age. Every time you use the wheel, you can thank Abe.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Abe Ratwort was known as well as that of Lois Davis herself. Abe's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.