Driving Blind

My Dear Isabella,

I’m writing to explain the large sum of money that has suddenly materialized for you and your brothers. Now, you know your grandmother to be a woman of modest means, so I imagine the news of your newfound small fortune has come as quite a shock! To best explain, I should like to share a story I’ve kept largely to myself for the past several decades.

New York City, January 1903

Mother (your great-grandmother) and I visited New York each year to escape the frigid lake-effect snow of Buffalo and gallivant through the predictable concrete cold of the big city. My fascination of the architecture and automobiles was only matched by Mother’s enraptured state as she scoured the streets for the best dressmakers and hatmakers in town. Mother always was the Vogue magazine to my Scientific American.

“You’re different, and I’m glad,” Mother always told me. I never fully understood this sentiment—different from whom? Was I different from her, different from everyone? I couldn’t be sure, but by her smile I knew I was loved. My skills and interests were apparently advanced for a young girl in the late 1800s. While my friends played with dolls, I studied drawings of Ford’s latest models, and while my schoolmates played hopscotch, I sat with my back up against the school building and read scientific journals. I didn’t know how, nor did I want to be anyone but me. I was too busy learning about the whole world to waste time trying to fit in to my little world. I know you understand this better than anyone, my darling, because you’re a bit like me.

When I turned twelve my parents sent me to a progressive boarding school for girls in upstate New York. I happily accepted this arrangement, though I never admitted to anyone how much I missed home while I was living away. I would return home excited and exhausted each Christmas, ready to do nothing but rest. But Mother, who was always up for an adventure, would comment about how quickly I was growing, how much my body was changing, and off we would sprint to New York to update my wardrobe—and, of course, Mother’s.

In January of 1903 I was fourteen, and while the twentieth century was but a young babe, I was quickly exiting adolescence with my newfound curves. New York City, however—she was a full-grown woman.

At every block I paused to admire her attire: the buildings that sprouted like plants year after year, the swarms of women in ostentatious hats milling about her streets, and the automobiles that brought those streets to a buzzing life. The Fords and GMs, all the drawings I had ever seen in the magazines and newspapers had materialized in three dimensions before my very eyes. Cars were everywhere. And one quite nearly and almost devastatingly made my acquaintance.

That snowy day I was standing on the northwest corner of 23^rd and 5^th Avenue admiring the brand-new Flatiron Building that had opened the year before. Mother, to be sure, had gone on ahead, not yet noticing my absence. While staring at the colossal triangular structure head-on it looked more like a thick column than a whole building. But as I swayed right and left, the sides of the building would come into view, like a magician’s trick. I remember thinking to myself: I could have designed that. You see, darling, humility was no sister trait to my intelligence at that time.

Anyhow, my focus was forcefully pulled from the Flatiron when a Ford Model A swerved off the road and nearly knocked me flat, sending a tidal wave of snow up and over my head. It missed me by inches—the car, not the snow. No one was hurt, and in a strange twist of fate, instead of taking my life, that incident gave my life a new, very specific purpose.

As I cleared icy slush from my face I could see the problem (you know, that’s the key to being a great scientist, you need to identify problems). Actually, it’s what I couldn’t see that gave me the idea: the driver. He was hidden by a windshield which was covered in snow. He had been driving blind.

I too was covered head-to-toe when Mother found me. I was afraid she would reprimand me, but instead she said with a smirk, “Good Heavens, Mary! You have a romp in the snow?” We both cackled. She swept me away, and the minute I could get my hands on paper, I wrote down my idea and drew my first designs.

“Windshield Clearing Mechanism by Mary Anderson,” I doodled on the paper. “WCM.” I knew the name wasn’t clever, but I didn’t care about that. I was focused on getting the design just right. I drew curves and hinges, labeled the parts and measurements, and listed raw materials. Everything was precise.

My parents took me to apply for a patent. When I received the patent along with a congratulations letter in the mail, it was the proudest moment of my life up to that point. (The day of your birth would be one such moment which would surpass it, darling).

Pride gave me the courage to pitch my designs to car manufacturers. I was only fifteen when preparing for my first pitch, but at that time I had a New York City-esque womanhood confidence. My intellect was at its peak and my emotions were solid as city skyscrapers—or so I thought.

Now, this is the part of the story which laid heavy on me for many years. Remember that humility I mentioned earlier, darling? The car companies served me humble pie swiftly and with firm resolve, while my confidence crumbled into ash. After but a brief glance at my drawings, each executive told me the same thing, “It will never work.”

“But it’s patented,” I would argue.

“This contraption would distract drivers.”

And I would stammer something about how the drivers are already distracted as they can’t even see, and how I was nearly killed… But it was like speaking directly to a wall (a wall of stuffy, old men, but let’s not go there, I’ll run out of ink). I would later realize how desperate and whiny I had sounded, which gave me a twinkle of understanding for the way they reacted to me. A twinkle.

I could see the answer to the problem as clear as one could see a road through a clean windshield on a sunny day. The executives couldn’t see what I could see. They were driving blind.

As you know, the idea of the windshield wiper eventually did come to fruition. However, it came to be without me at the helm. I felt very defeated for a long time. Bitterness and regret befriended me. I stopped drawing and designing, stopped reading journals. My learning and creativity were at a standstill, and that is no way to live. Darling, don’t let failure cripple you as it did me.

One day I finally snapped out of it. I couldn’t watch life happen around me anymore. It was like I had been hiding out in a New York City apartment while the streets below were bursting with life, so I stepped outside and joined in.

It’s been decades since I scribbled my idea down on paper, but now (I giggle as I write this) it seems the course is being corrected and I am being compensated for my original designs. Life continues to surprise. Dear Isabella, I have everything I could ever need, so that is why I have signed you and your younger brothers as the recipients of this financial offering. You are young, yet, and I am thrilled to invest in your future. I know you will use your talents in a beautiful, useful, meaningful way in the world, and I can’t wait to see it.

Never forget: You’re different, and I’m glad.

All my love,

Grandmother

(This fictional story is based on a real person named Mary Anderson who invented the windshield wiper. She did get a patent but never profited from her invention. This story is also inspired by my grandfather who drew designs for the toothpaste flip cap, but was never able to get it patented. He witnessed the cap come to life without him).