Carver, George Washington (1864-1943)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1943 Jan 14 p. 1

Birth date: 1864

text of obituary:

DR. GEO. WASHINGTON CARVER CALLED AWAY IN DEATH

Disclaiming any credit for his remarkable discoveries, Dr. George Washington Carver, internationally famous Negro scientist once said, "The things already are there; God, through my hands, brings them to light."

Last week, at Tuskegee, Ala., at his home at Tuskegee Institute, this man was dead.

Born of slave parents at Diamond Grove, Mo., Dr. Carver was never sure of his birth date, but once estimated that it was "about 1864."

He became a member of the Tuskegee Institute faculty in 1894 and has been attached to the Negro institution ever since.

Dr. Carver's mother was owned by Moses Carver of Diamond Grove. While Dr. Carver was still a small child, he and his mother were stolen and carried into Arkansas. His master redeemed him by trading a horse to the abductors, but the mother had disappeared.

Dr. Carver, best known as the man who made the peanut famous, devoted 44 years of his versatile life to science. He developed more than 300 useful products from the peanut and more than 100 others from other plants and crops.

He once turned down a $100,000.00 a year position in order to continue his work in behalf of the colored race and to continue the profession he loved above all others, near "God's earth.".