The image of the full-time inventor, working in a dedicated laboratory funded by grants or investment, is the exception rather than the rule.

Most people who hold patents held them while also doing other work — teaching, working in factories, running small businesses, raising children.

The inventive work happened in the spaces between the other work, in the evenings and on weekends and during the particular kind of focused attention that inventors maintain even when they appear to be doing something else entirely.

Mary Kenner’s flower shop years were productive inventive years.

Her second through fifth patents were all granted during the period when she was operating the shop, in 1966, 1966, 1973, and 1975.