About Frances Gabe
Frances Gabe was an American inventor who is most well known for devising household gadgets for convenience but more specifically for designing and building the first "self-cleaning house". Frances, the daughter of Frederick Arnholz and the former Ernestine Ganske was born on a ranch near Boise, Idaho. Her father was an architect and construction worker which prompted the family to constantly move around. Growing up, Frances constantly moved around; she attended a total of 18 different elementary schools. Gabe's interest in innovation and construction stemmed from her time accompanying her father at work. She found a sense of continuity among the builders she met when she accompanied her father on jobs and as she observed she learned much of their craft. She truly worshiped him, spending as much time as she could riding up scaffolding on his shoulders. Frances graduated from Girls Polytechnic High School in Portland at 16 and at the age of 17, she married Herbert Grant Bateson. The couple operated a small construction company business in Portland, Oregon for a couple of years and then moved to Newberg, Oregon. In 1967, Frances Gabe divorced Herbert Bateson. Although the couple divorced, Bateson lived on the property on a trailer outside the main house. After the divorce, Frances began to feel quite lonely and this was the turning point for the invention that allowed her to gain fame. She particularly hated housework and thought it inconvenient and time-consuming. With this, she saw no reason to spend the rest of her life spending her time cleaning and so she got to work. The idea for the infamous self-cleaning house was born from a simple dilemma. Frances Gabe's young children were constantly the cause of the fig-jam ending up smeared on the walls. Exasperated by this, Gabe took a hose and washed the jam away, this was the foundation for the self-cleaning house. Over a 12-year period, she actually built it. Throughout this process, Frances received criticism from local communities; she once had a group of angry housewives at the doorstep claiming that her invention would take away their jobs and their husband's need for them. The house incorporated 70 of her separate inventions, from a self-cleaning dishwasher, a self-cleaning fireplace, and even giving her dog a bath. Each room contained a cleaning apparatus that was roughly 10 square inches in the center of the room. The self-cleaning system works by opening a valve and then pushing a button. This activates a sprinkler system that dispenses soap and water across the room. This automated car wash-like system cleans ceilings, walls, floors, windows, curtains, and furniture. Gabe obtained 36 patents for various pieces of cleaning inventions she invented, including a material used to cover upholstery which is strong enough to hold molten steel but soft enough to sleep on comfortably. In 1980 she applied for a patent and finally received it on January 31, 1984, for Self-Cleaning Construction. In 2002, Frances began charging visitors by appointment with a rate of $25 for the first visitor and $5 for each additional person. Frances received the recognition she deserved in 2003 when an intricate model of the house was displayed in the new Women's Museum in Dallas.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.