Hector Boiardi
Yes, there is a Chef Boyardee, although his name is not spelled that way. Hector Boiardi, an Italian immigrant, came to the United States in 1914 when he was only 17.
Upon his arrival, he immediately got a job as a chef at New York's Plaza Hotel, where his brother worked as a waiter. After moving to Cleveland, he perfected his spaghetti and meatball recipe in 1929. His customers kept asking for bottles of his pasta sauce so they could have it at home, and he obliged. He then added cheeses and pasta to the sauce.
The results were so popular that he started to sell the products in area stores, and later in stores outside the area. Boiardi remained an advisor in the canned pasta business until his death at age 87 in 1985. And yes, that is Hector's picture on the label.
James Bond
James Bond, known to his friends as; Jim, was a Philadelphia ornithologist and the author of a book called Birds of the West India.
While the bird-watching book may not have been a bestseller, it did catch the attention of an Englishman named Ian Fleming. At the time, Fleming was living in Jamaica and writing a book of his own. It was the story of an as yet unnamed British secret agent who had the code name 007.
One day, as Fleming was sitting at breakfast looking through his favorite non-fiction tide, he found the perfect name for his hero: Bond, James Bond. Interestingly, the name Bond was not chosen because it was strong, exotic, or even memorable. As Fleming later wrote, "It struck me that this name, brief, unromantic and yet very masculine, was just what I needed." Jim Bond didn't know about his fictional namesake until the early 1960s when he read an interview in which Fleming explained the origin of his character's name.
In 1961, Bond's wife, Mary, wrote to Fleming and half jokingly threatened to sue him for defamation of character. Fleming replied, "I most confess that your husband has every reason to sue me.... In return, I can only offer your James Bond unlimited use of the name Ian Fleming for any purpose he may think fit."
Milton Bradley
Milton Bradley was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The early portion of his career was marked by a long string of bad luck. He wanted to be a scientist, and in 1854 he took his savings and enrolled in the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge. Unfortunately, his parents decided to move two years later, and he was forced to drop out. He commuted from his family home in Hartford, Connecticut, to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he worked as a draftsman for die Wason Locomotive Car Works.
While he was working in Springfield, Bradley began to dream of another career. He wanted to be a lithographer, a dream that seemed impossible because of the lack of lithographic presses in Springfield. One day Bradley heard about a press that was for sale in Providence, Rhode Island. He traveled to Providence, learned to use the machine, bought it, and brought it back to Springfield.
In 1860, Bradley got his first big project. The Republican National Convention suggested that he produce photographs of their candidate, Abraham Lincoln. Bradley pressed hundreds of thousands of the pictures, but by the time Lincoln won the election he had grown a beard and no longer resembled the photographs. No one bought them. The Civil War followed shortly after, and it seemed Bradley's business was doomed. But then an inventor brought Bradley a game called "The Checkered Game of Life." He printed 45,000 copies. The game was meant to be educational. The purpose was to finish the game with a peaceful retirement based on having made proper moral decisions.
By 1868, Milton Bradley was the leading manufacturer of games in America. Over the years, the object of the Game of Life shifted. In the modern version, the person who retires with the greatest fortune wins.
John Jacob Bausch
John Jacob Bausch was born in 1830 in Switzerland, one of seven children. When Bausch was only six years old, his mother died.
Bausch's first job was assisting in his older brother's spectacle-making business.
In 1848, the younger Bausch got word of an opening at an optical shop in Berne, so he left on foot for the city. When he arrived, he got the job at a starting salary of 36 cents a day. After only a year however, Bausch decided to try his luck in America.
He traveled to Buffalo, New York, where he worked as a cook's assistant, then moved to Rochester, where he found work as a wood-turner. There he suffered an accident. His hand got caught in the machinery, and he was forced to leave the trade.
Once he had recovered from the accident he tried selling his brother's optical supplies. The business seemed promising, and he convinced a friend to join him in business making eyeglasses. That friend's name was Henry Lomb.
John Breck
In 1898, John Breck, a fireman with the Chicopee, Massachusetts, Fire Department, became the youngest fire chief in America.
Personally, however, Breck was troubled. He was only 21 years old and was already losing his hair.
In those days, there was no Rogaine, no Hair Club for Men, not even even much shampoo. Most Americans washed their hair with the same bar of soap they used on their bodies.
Breck was unwilling to accept his hair loss, so he began taking chemistry classes at Amherst College in his spare time, determined to find a cure.
He earned a doctorate, and opened a scalp treatment center where he used his own liquid shampoo.
Breck never did discover the cure for hereditary baldness, but he did introduce modern shampoo to the American public.
Frank Zamboni
Today, the name Zamboni is widely recognized by hockey fans and skaters. "If our name had been Smith or Brown, I don't think any of this would have happened," Richard Zamboni, president of Frank Zamboni, Inc., once said. "It's kind of a screwball name.
There's such a uniqueness to it, the machine kind of took on a character of its own. My father was always surprised at that." Richard's father was Frank Zamboni, the son of Italian immigrants. He was raised in Utah, and at age 21 moved to California to seek his fortune in the ice business. There was a time, of course, when people did not have refrigerators. Instead, they had ice boxes, which kept food cold with a block of ice. Frank Zamboni supplied the ice blocks.
By the late 1930s however, ice boxes were slowly being replaced by home refrigerators. With his life savings tied up in refrigeration equipment, Zamboni decided to build an ice rink. His least favorite task as ice rink manager was resurfacing the ice. This was accomplished with a planer pulled by a tractor. The planer would level the ice and the shavings were then swept off manually. Next the ice was washed by a large hose, and smoothed with a squeegee, The task would take an hour and a half. So Zamboni went to work on a machine to make the task easier.
After ten years of less successful models, Zamboni rolled out his first workable resurfacer in 1949. The machine was spotted by skating champ Sonja Henie, who ordered one for her ice show. Her use of the machine popularized it in the United States and helped make the unlikely moniker Zamboni a household word.
Elihu Yale
Elihu Yale was born in Boston in 1648. When he was four, his family moved to England, and he never returned to the United States.
For 20 years, Yale was part of the East India Company, and he became governor of a settlement at Madras. He was suspended from the post, however, in 1692 after disagreements with his council and his superiors.
Yale amassed a fortune in his lifetime, and he was generous with the proceeds.
In 1718, a man named Cotton Mather contacted Yale and asked for his help. He represented a small institution of learning. It was founded as the Collegiate School of Connecticut in 1701, and it needed money for a new building in New Haven.
Yale sent Mather a carton of goods that the school sold, earning them 560 pounds, which was a substantial sum in the early 1700s.
In gratitude, officials named the new building for Yale, and eventually the entire institution became Yale College.
The first benefactor of Yale University is buried in the churchyard of Wrexham, North Wales. His tomb is inscribed with these lines:
Born in America, in Europe bred,
In Africa traveled, in Asia wed,
Where long he lived and thrived, in London dead;
Much good, some ill he did, so hope all's even,
And that his soul through mercy's gone to heaven.