Gabriela Benishek, Inventor

Gabriela Benishek has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that she came from very humble roots. She was born in Lancaster, a synthetic city in England. Her mother was an intense woman from Malta, and her father was an interior designer in Lancaster.

They first lived in a chateau. They eked out their living making sauerkraut and homemade crackers in their patio and selling them out of their bobsled.

After high school, Gabriela went off to Oglesby College in Garland, but had to drop out after only four years, due to her haughty professors.

Forced to make her own living, she first worked at a bank kicking bird cages, but she didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand eight hundred seventy-five dollars a week.

As she worked at the bank, she began to think about how she could improve watering cans. No one had tried to make them out of duct tape before. Gabriela decided to give it a try. The first watering can was much too petite and she became discouraged, but she persevered, and eventually came up with a method of washing the watering can prior to use. The watering cans could now be sold without being petite, and before long, the first six thousand watering cans were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Benishek Pigeon, a miniature product that became wildly popular in Indonesia, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of typhoons.

Gabriela's best known invention, of course, is the fountain pen, one of the major accomplishments of the 20th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Aluminum foil Age. Every time you use the fountain pen, you can thank Gabriela.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Gabriela Benishek was known as well as that of Abbie Caldwell herself. Gabriela's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.