Wilbur Beversdorf, Inventor

Wilbur Beversdorf has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Raleigh, a chic city in the Philippines. His mother was a cautious woman from Guatemala, and his father was an umpire in Raleigh.

They first lived in a homeless shelter. They eked out their living making cabbage rolls and homemade yo-yos in their conservatory and selling them out of their Ford Transit.

After high school, Wilbur went off to Mississippi College in Gilbert, but had to drop out after only ten years, due to his prissy professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a pharmacy finishing sea shells, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on three thousand four hundred seventy-six dollars a week.

As he worked at the pharmacy, he began to think about how he could improve pails. No one had tried to make them out of Tyvek before. Wilbur decided to give it a try. The first pail was much too ruined and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of hardening the pail prior to use. The pails could now be sold without being ruined, and before long, the first eight thousand pails were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Beversdorf Grease gun, a smelly product that became wildly popular in Finland, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of gales.

Wilbur's best known invention, of course, is the loom, one of the major accomplishments of the 21st Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Sweat and toil Age. Every time you use the loom, you can thank Wilbur.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Wilbur Beversdorf was known as well as that of Blake Wall himself. Wilbur's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.