While in Fort Myers, Fla., we stopped in at the summer home and laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison. These beautiful bottles were used in his lab….

They had just restored the lab, so all the bottles were temporarily displayed on unattractive metal shelving. Imagine if you will, all those bottles on these tables and shelves. His other labs are at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. That’s a pretty fabulous museum, by the way.

Edison not only invented the light bulb, but the phonograph and motion pictures. Early victrolas had no volume control, so they made larger “horns” for louder music. If they wanted to lower the volume, they stuffed socks in the horn. That’s where the expression “put a sock in it” comes from, according to our guide.

Edison’s kinetoscope, the precursor for movie cameras.

Edison’s summer home. You can’t walk inside any of the rooms, so I didn’t take interior shots.

Henry Ford of Ford Motors was a close friend of Edison’s, and his summer home is located next door. I didn’t get a picture of Ford’s house, but here’s a shot of the interior:

Believe it or not, Ford captured Edison’s last breath in a glass tube and it’s in the Dearborn museum:

Google image

A little obsessive, maybe?

This is in Edison’s office off the lab. I love the old typewriter and wire baskets.

Another vintage typewriter and an ancient wall phone in the same office:

The thing that struck me the most was that Edison’s very first teacher called him “addled” and his mother pulled him out of school after only three months. Thank heaven she was a teacher and was able to homeschool him. Edison’s quote about her:

“My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”

Imagine how different our lives would be if she hadn’t taught him?

Oh, on our last day, we went to a huge flea market in Fort Myers. This was one of the places to get food. Yep, fried gator tails. Nope, I didn’t try them and I never will. I have my limits. 🙂