This seminar presents a look at already published obituaries and how lives were celebrated with the written word.  We’ll explore how people used humor or a quirky habit or an attention grabbing line in their life stories.  What are some features of an obituary that grabs your attention?   Given a snippet of an obituary of a famous person, could you name that person? We know that you are just dying to get in this class.

The seminar will focus on lesser-known Dayton inventors.  For example, Vincent G. Apple has 745 patents credited to his name.  Charles Francis Jenkins had 400 patents, and Thomas Midgley, Jr., was granted over 100 patents over his career.  In addition to these individuals, many more ingenious inventions that came out of Dayton.  The course will also refer to Dayton's more famous inventors.