Thomas Edison and the Magical Boxcars

By Marshall Landwehr

My name is Marshall, and the story I’m about to tell you is unbelievable. I was up late one night researching for a project about Thomas Edison. He was most famous for inventing electricity. After what seemed like a 1000 years of reading, I laid my head on my desk and was out like a light!

The next thing I knew I woke up on a train! There was a boy waking me. He said his name was Thomas Alva Edison.

I said “I thought you died in 1931.” How could I be seeing someone who’s supposed to be dead?

“Speak up,” he said.

I remembered he had been sick with scarlet fever and had lost some of his hearing.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Thomas. “It’s 1859, and I was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio.”

1859! How did I get to 1859?

“Why are we on a train?” I asked.Thomas showed me the chemistry lab he had set up. Then we walked into the next boxcar, and I noticed Thomas had grown older!

He showed me something he had made – the automatic vote recorder. It was supposed to help count votes in an election. I remembered this invention was his first from 1868.

As we walked into the next boxcar, Thomas introduced me to Mary Stillwell, his wife! He told me they had married on Christmas Day of 1871. She used to be his assistant. I also met his three children – Marion, Thomas and William.

What is this, I wondered. I must be on a time travelling train!

The next boxcar was really cool. I got to help Thomas send a telegraph on a machine he had invented in 1874.

This guy isn’t as boring as I thought!

I remembered from my research that Thomas only went to school for a few months. He taught himself most things by reading and was really inspired by Sir Issac Newton.

In the next car, Thomas told me we were in Menlo Park, New Jersey where he built his first big lab with his wife and staff. It was 1878, and he showed me his tin foil phonograph. This recorded and played sound. He even got to demonstrate it to President Rutherford B. Hayes at the White House!

It was getting kind of dark outside the train. I was really glad to see a lot of light in the next boxcar. Thomas told me he worked on this project for a year and a half!

It was his invention of electricity. In 1879, he lit up his whole lab in Menlo Park with lightbulbs!

Thomas formed the Edison General Electric Company that is still around today. It is called GE.

When we went to the next boxcar, Thomas told me his wife Mary had died in 1884.

But he smiled and said he had married again to Mina Miller in 1886.

This was when he moved to West Orange, New Jersey. They had three children named Madeleine, Charles and Theodore. He lived there with Mina until he died on October 18, 1931.

As we moved to the next boxcar, I found myself alone. There was a note on a desk addressed to me. It was from Thomas. It said,

“ Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try one more time.”

The next thing I remember is waking up in a pile of drool on my desk. I realized I had just taken a walk with Thomas Edison throughout his life and great inventions. I knew the quote he had left me was to encourage me to finish my project and to never give up! We use electricity in our lives everyday. There are many electrical companies now and different types of electricity.

Without Thomas Edison, we might still be living in the dark.