Abe Ott, Inventor

Abe Ott has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in San Bernardino, a gigantic city in New Zealand. His mother was a sinister woman from Pakistan, and his father was a chemist in San Bernardino.

They first lived in a chapel. They eked out their living making fondue and homemade watering cans in their closet and selling them out of their Lincoln Town Car.

After high school, Abe went off to South Carolina College in Peoria, but had to drop out after only two years, due to his solitary personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a train depot spraying pieces of candy, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on one thousand one hundred eighty dollars a week.

As he worked at the train depot, he began to think about how he could improve maps. No one had tried to make them out of corncob before. Abe decided to give it a try. The first map was much too dirty and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of praising the map prior to use. The maps could now be sold without being dirty, and before long, the first nine hundred maps were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Ott Paper airplane, a new product that became wildly popular in The Sandwich Islands, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hurricanes.

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

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Abe Ott was known as well as that of Flash Windle himself. Abe's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.