Publisher's Synopsis
This book is about the author's mother, Ellen Florence Nedland, as the designer of her son Stan's life as a forensic scientist. The story really goes back to June 14, 1928, when Mother Ellen's son, Stan, was born in Barron, Wisconsin (Mother Ellen's only child). Mother Ellen was probably the single most important factor in her son', Stan, later becoming a forensic scientist. Mother Ellen started her son reading books at an early age and in early grades. This was a process that continued through grade school and later high school. Mother Ellen would cut out little strips of colored paper to resemble bookends.
As Stan finished a book, Mother Ellen pasted it (colored strip) on a sheet of paper as both a record and further reading encouragement. Reading books thereby became an important part of Stan's life. Stan started with author Mark Twain and his stories Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Stan then moved on to the author Arthur Conan Doyle and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a solver of crimes through science and chemistry and microscopy. The Sherlock Holmes series of stores stirred Stan's interest in what would later become his lifetime occupation as a forensic scientist, who handled a thousand cases and testified in the various courts (criminal and civil, federal, state, military, territorial, Canadian, and even a case in Japan).
Mother Ellen also gave Stan (while a child) Christmas presents such as chemistry sets, and erector sets to further stimulate his interest in the sciences. Stan often says that "whatever has been his lifetime achievements, he owes most to his mother Ellen. Any failures are his own!"
