Charles Kettering  By: Susan Stahl and Jedotta
Ziemer                       March 2002  Born on a farm near
Loudonville, Ohio, on August 29, 1876, Charles Franklin
Kettering was the fourth of five children in an "unremarkable
family" (Bernstein, 85). He grew to be a lanky, large-featured
man whose most notable attribute was his very weak eyes.
Kettering grew up "with an innate curiosity about the laws of
nature and science and their application to solving everyday
problems". A young boy, who grew up on an Ohio farm, Charles
Kettering earned his first money, fourteen dollars, by cutting a
neighbor's wheat crop. With this fourteen dollars, he bought a
telephone from a mail order house. This inquisitive young boy
dismantled the phone to study it. This interested him more than
actually using the phone for its intended purpose. Through this,
a great career was soon to be launched.   A Hard Worker and
Determined Student At the age of nineteen, Charles accepted a
teaching position in a one-room schoolhouse. Charles