25 Feb 2025, Tuesay

 25 Feb 2025, Tuesday

Prioritized Daily

Shelby Traveller's 21st Birthday

Note:  At age 13, newly arrived Scots immigrant Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) first worked 12-hour days earning $1.20 a week as a bobbin boy at a Pennsylvania cotton mill.

By dint of his drive, a keen mind, and an eye for opportunity, he improved his lot by becoming a messenger boy. His abilities and ambition soon made him a telegraph operator, then a superintendent for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

By 30, Carnegie was rich, an investor in the ironworks industry and other enterprises, and was fast becoming a major player in steel production. When he sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan in 1901, Carnegie retired from business as the wealthiest man in the world.

During Carnegie’s time as a teenage messenger, local entrepreneur Col. James Anderson made his private library available on Saturdays and gave borrowing privileges to working-class boys.

Writing later about the consequences of this generosity, Carnegie observed that in this way “the windows were opened in the walls of my dungeon through which the light of knowledge streamed in.”

To his benefactor, Anderson, Carnegie raised a statue. But much more importantly, Carnegie funded the construction of more than 2,800 libraries in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, all intended to further the opportunities for self-education among the common people.

The boy who craved books had returned Anderson’s generosity a million-fold.

I slept in this morning.  I still have a have a cold.  Debbie went and tried to sleep on the couch.  Her cold is getting into her head and deeper in her chest.  I had my personal prayer and sent Shelby a happy birthday text.  I showered and tried to go back to bed but could not sleep.  I got up and Debbie and I watched one of the Series, Episode 1 about Abraham Lincoln. Jeff Nelson, Beth's friend, sent us a bottle of Vitamin C with over 30 other vitamins, minerals, and herbs, Wellness Formula Supplement, advanced immune support.  I worked on gathering and organizing tax information for the CPA.  We still have 3 more reports coming from the accountant in Shelly regarding the farm and Jalna's estate.  I fixed meals for us today.  We had prayer together and I got Debbie to sleep in the bed, not the couch.  I promised her I would not keep her awake coughing.  We gotddd to bed at about 9:30 pm.