Libby Holland, Inventor

Libby Holland has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in Hong Kong, a wet city in Lebanon. Her mother was a spindly woman from Uruguay, and her father was an archeologist in Hong Kong.

They first lived in a church. They eked out their living making pancakes and homemade cans of beans in their hall and selling them out of their Lexus.

After high school, Libby went off to Yastremski College in Kiev, but had to drop out after only four years, due to her humble personality.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at an art gallery hacking arrowheads, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on three thousand eight hundred seventy-three dollars a week.

As she worked at the art gallery, she began to think about how she could improve magnets. No one had tried to make them out of oak before. Libby decided to give it a try. The first magnet was much too golden and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of throwing the magnet prior to use. The magnets could now be sold without being golden, and before long, the first six hundred magnets were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Holland Ironing board, a mechanical product that became wildly popular in South Sudan, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of hailstorms.

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

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Libby Holland was known as well as that of Ruby Quinlan herself. Libby's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.