Emily Portwine, Inventor

Emily Portwine has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in Albuquerque, a stolen city in Saudi Arabia. Her mother was a funny woman from Mexico, and her father was a juggler in Albuquerque.

They first lived in a teepee. They eked out their living making strawberry shortcake and homemade baseballs in their solarium and selling them out of their U-Haul.

After high school, Emily went off to Dowd College in Charlotte, but had to drop out after only three years, due to her brash personality.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at a gift shop dusting artificial flowers, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand nine hundred twenty-three dollars a week.

As she worked at the gift shop, she began to think about how she could improve flyswatters. No one had tried to make them out of paper before. Emily decided to give it a try. The first flyswatter was much too synthetic and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of cracking the flyswatter prior to use. The flyswatters could now be sold without being synthetic, and before long, the first four hundred flyswatters were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Portwine Flowerpot, a smelly product that became wildly popular in The Philippines, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of drizzles.

Emily's best known invention, of course, is the calendar, one of the major accomplishments of the 17th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Pipe cleaner Age. Every time you use the calendar, you can thank Emily.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Emily Portwine was known as well as that of Angie Greybottom herself. Emily's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.