Minor Notes -- February 26, 2015

Reporting Friday:
NRG, forecast 52 cents; before market open;
Goodrich Petroleum (GDP), forecast a lost of 45 cents; before market open;

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A Note to the Granddaughters

Update: The Bismarck Tribune has a review/recommendation for a Christmas gift: the biography of a North Dakota woman who invented rocket fuel. Posted December 17, 2017.

Original Post

 
I just finished reading Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First female Rocket Scientist, George D. Morgan, c. 2013. 

Simply a delightful book.

I posted the summary of my notes from the book at this site.

Born 1921; grew up on a farm near Ray, North Dakota. Graduated valedictorian from Ray High School, despite starting elementary school two to three years late. Affinity for math and chemistry. Recruited by Plum Brook Ordnance Works (Ohio) during WWII; unable to complete college; no degree; later to North American Aviation (precursor to Rocketdyne); singularly responsible for inventing hydyne -- the rocket propellant that was used to launch America's first satellite, Explorer I, into space, following Sputnik.

Wiki biography here. 

Irving Kanarek biography here.

Great description of North Dakota rural life in the 1930's; the women working the munitions plants in WWII; the Cold War; a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

A very, very easy read. Fascinating story; very well told. Bittersweet.

I bought my copy at Books on Broadway, bookstore, Williston, near the corner of Main Street and Broadway, Williston, North Dakota.