Inventors Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner and her sister Mildred Davidson Austin Smith of the (Sanitary Products & The Walker) Inventors Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner and her sister Mildred Davidson Austin Smith blossomed from one family. Their unusual creative abilities illustrate the extraordinary talent of women. Both were born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Mary Beatrice on May 17, 1912, and Mildred on January 31, 1916. They believed that their natural talent for discovery came from their nurturing, inventive father, Sidney Nathaniel Davidson, who was born in June 1890 and died in November 1958. When Beatrice was just a toddler, he began working on an invention for a pants presser that was patented in 1914. Their maternal grandfather, Robert Phromeberger, of German and Irish extraction, tinkered with objects to make them work better. He invented many devices, including a tricolor light signal for trains. 19 This family’s ingenuity formed a pattern that the two sisters followed. Beatrice was the first to exhibit exceptional female intuitiveness. She has received patents in diverse areas and continues to think of new ideas while retired from active work as a professional floral arranger who operated her own business. Beatrice has utility patents on catamenial devices (two), an invalid walker, a toilet-tissue holder, and a back washer mounting on a shower wall and bathtub. When Mildred was a young, married woman with two young sons, she was stricken with multiple sclerosis and was incapacitated. During her lengthy illness, she had lots of time to think. Eventually she thought of a game to teach family relationships, so she filed for a patent. The game is for young people to help them understand their place in the extended family. After receiving the “Family Relationships Card Game” patent in 1980, Mildred protected her brainchild, getting a trademark on the game’s name, “Family Treedition.” She manufactured it in Braille as well. After a long illness Mildred passed away on
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:01:08 +0000
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