Thomas Edison\u2019s laboratory was virtually destroyed by fire in December, 1914. Although the damage exceeded $2 million, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof. Much of Edison\u2019s life\u2019s work went up in spectacular flames that December night.<\/p>\n
At the height of the fire, Edison\u2019s 24-year-old son, Charles, frantically searched for his father among the smoke and debris. He finally found him, calmly watching the scene, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart ached for him,\u201d said Charles. \u201cHe was 67 \u2014 no longer a young man \u2014 and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, \u201cCharles, where\u2019s your mother?\u201d When I told him I didn\u2019t know, he said, \u201cFind her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and said, \u201cThere is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three weeks after the fire, Edison managed to deliver his first phonograph.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
The Sower\u2019s Seeds, from A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen<\/p>\n
[see also HolwickID #11967]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thomas Edison\u2019s laboratory was virtually destroyed by fire in December, 1914. Although the damage exceeded $2 million, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof. Much of Edison\u2019s life\u2019s work went up in spectacular flames that December night. At the height of the fire, Edison\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[276,613,3039,2212,3037,3038,2873,1021,2054,621],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5629"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}