CREATIVE PERSONALITIES VOLUME VII CREATIVE PERSONALITIES VOLUME VII Unused Alibis Edited by PHILIP HENRY LOTZ, Ph. D. Association Tress 291 Broadway New York 1951 Contents Names enclosed in quotation marks are fictitious. PAGE INTRODUCTION, by Philip Henry Lotz ......... i LOUISE BAKER An Athletic Uniped, by Mary . Moxcey . . 5 BETSEY BARTON A Girl Who Learned to Live Again, by Mary E. Moxcey ................ 13 CHARLES GUY BOLTE Something New in Veterans, by Clarice Bowman .................. . 21 ELIZABETH BOWERS Polio Victim, Yet Always Rejoicing, by Grace Chapin Auten ............... 29 IDA BROWN Through Unmarried Motherhood to Social Service, by Gladys Hoagland Groves ......... 35 JOHN CARLTON A Man Who Stopped Drinking, by Grace Chapin Auten ................. 43 EMMA CLEMENT Americas Mother of 1946, by FranJ Glenn Laniard ................... 51 PAUL DAVIS Explorer of the Air, by Dorothy Blac Hamill . 57 BAYARD DODGE Builder of Human Bridges, by Harold B. Hunting ................... 65 CLARENCE HAWKES Taller Than the Night, by Harriet Faust 71 ROBERT W. IRWIN Bringer of Light into Darkened Lives, by Harriet Faust ................. 79 EDWARD J. KUNCEL One Who Seeks No Special Favors, by Glenn Laniard .............. 83 .00 PAGE CHARLES FLETCHER LUMMIS A Man Who Did His Part, by Clarice Bowman 91 HORACE PIPPIN The Porter Who Taught Himself to Paint, by Kendig Brubafyer Cully 99 WASHINGTON AUGUSTUS ROEBLING The Builder of Brooklyn Bridge, by Verna Eugenia Mutch 103 J. W. SHARPE A Man with Two Pardons, by John Bunyan Atkins 109 EDWARD SHELDON A Man Who Lived Through His Friends, by Dorothy Blac Hamill 115 VI CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME JOHN BUNYAN ATKINS Reporter on The Birmingham News, Birmingham, Alabama GRACE CHAPIN AUTEN Author and Teacher, Urbana, Illinois CLARICE BOWMAN Youth Department, Board of Education, Nashville, Tennessee KENDIG BRUBAKER CULLY Minister of Education, First Methodist Church, Evanston, Illinois HARRIET FAUST Assistant to Minister, Trinity Methodist Church, Columbus, Ohio GLADYS HOAGLAND GROVES Director, Marriage and Family Council, Inc., Chapel Hill, North Carolina DOROTHY BLACK HAMILL Formerly One of the Editors in Missionary Education Movement, Johnson City, Tennessee HAROLD B. HUNTING Pastor, First Congregational Church, Torrington, Connecticut FRANK GLENN LANKARD Dean, Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio PHILIP HENRY LOTZ Pastor, First Methodist Church, Forrest, Illinois MARY E. MOXCEY Editor and Writer, Sierra Madre, California VERNA EUGENIA MUTCH Senior Reference Assistant, Free Library, Allentown, Pennsylvania Introduction IN COLLOQUIAL LANGUAGE alibi is frequently used in the sense of excuse and that is the sense conveyed in the title of this book, rather than in its original legal meaning of having been elsewhere at the time an offense was committed. Human nature does not change greatly in a span of many cen turies. Jesus began one of his famous stories with the words, And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The persons Jesus was talking about did not represent the type we are consid ering in this volume. The men and women described here are in cluded precisely because they did not make excuses. It is well to remember that the pages of history glow with the examples of people who refused to call upon their alibis. Let us enumerate just a few of them. Homer, Milton, Fanny Crosby, Henry Fawcett, Helen Keller, and Edwin Frost were blind. Lud wig von Beethoven, Thomas A. Edison, and Edward S. Martin were deaf. Edward L. Trudeau, Sidney Lanier, and Theodore Roosevelt were tubercular. Mozart, Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Pope, Shelley, Balzac, and Sarah Bernhardt were crippled. William Wilberforce, Charles Steinmetz, Plato, and Edgar Allen Poe were hunchbacks. Handel, Pasteur, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were paralytics...