Farnsworth Museum - Rigby, ID - Aug 2006

Probably the most famous of any of my relatives is Philo T. Farnsworth. (Follow the link for an in-depth article about him.) He and my grandfather were first cousins and my grandmother used to always pray that her grandkids would inherit some of his brainpower. It was by pure chance that we happened upon this museum dedicated to his life, inventions and contributions to the world of television. I was reading a brochure about the Idaho Falls area and saw "The Farnsworth Museum" advertised in the nearby town of Rigby, Idaho. It turns out that Philo grew up in Rigby and at the young age of 14 began taking an interest in electronics. So, of course being a "Farnsworth" (my maiden name) I had to go check out the details on my famous relative.

Philo is know as the "Father of Television" having patented and demonstrated the first working electronic television system. He claims that he got the brainstorm from plowing potato fields -- there was something about the visual symmetry of the row upon row of plowed fields that triggered his design.

While he developed the technology for television, he wasn't a fan of the programming. Philo's son said this of his dad's reaction to tv shows:

"He felt he had created kind of a monster, a way for people to waste a lot of their lives. He was know to say that 'There's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this household, and I don't want it in your intellectual diet.' "

Late night talk show host Johnny Carson had this to say about Philo:

"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners."