Saint Thomas A. Edison- Really Bizarre Find. What the $%#%?

[Shane]

I have to run this by you guys, because this is definitely one of the strangest thrift store finds I've made in a while. Here's a framed document of some sort, declaring Thomas A. Edison a saint. It definitely looks old. Below the picture is a transcription of the text. Frequent misspellings in the document are copied as-is.





Saint Thomas A. Edison
The only Saint who in his earthly career enjoyed the pleassure of knowing of his ascention to the honorific category of Saint.

Thomas A. Edison was born Feb 11 1847, ascended to Saint in 1917 and 1927 when he learned of the fact; as a token of appreciation sent his autographed foto to canonizer and on the 17 Oct. 1931 he took leave of this Planet.

Now with the object of doing honor to merit I cordually invite all the world with out exception of nacionalaty, race or religious creed to form an interminable circule of greateful humanity for the benefit that Thomas Edison lavished on all the human family and even his "HOLINES" the "POPOO OF ROME" included.

Some religious ladies have doubed me a Daring adventurer for having invanded the prorrogatives of his Holines canonizing a Saint. I shall not take the trouble to discus the merits of this question; I will only impruove the expresssion to place his Holines in a situation of a compromise. Without his Holines asking my forgiveness for his oversight of not having canonized Thomas Edison manny years ago, I will forgive him this omition And as his Holines cannot be less generous than the Daring Adventgurer that usurped from him the honor of canonizing the most maraculis Saint of all ages.

"Saint Thomas Alva Edison" the Saint that cahtured a few of the magnetic forses that control the whole universe, and diceplined them to the service of mankind for his material and intelectual enlightment besides being aplicalbe as motor force to ennumerable mschanical inventions all useful in the activities of modern life. And now that this work is inmume to all malicious interpretations I consider my adventure forgiven and I am sure that his Holines can not withold his blessing from it and accompany his blessing with a liberal donation to the Red Cross that shall be in harmony with the amount of his fortune and the size of his good heart.

N.W. Clausen- San Jose, Costa Rica
The ascender of Thomas A. Edison to the category of Saint

[MordEth]

That’s rather interesting...and quite bizarre. I tried researching the N.W. Clausen that elevated Edison to sainthood via Google, but wasn’t having any luck with it. Nor any results for his sainthood.

...so perhaps you’ve now created the definitive resource for Edison’s sainthood.

— MordEth

[Shane]

LOL Yeah, this thing is really weird.

Last night, I opened up the frame, and found an extensive note written in pencil on the back of the print. I was hoping to find a million dollars, or a lost copy of the US constitution, but instead I found more craziness. Whoever this guy was, he sure seemed quite obsessed with Edison. I get the same feeling reading this stuff as I did with a certain member of various phono boards who gave us "The Paramount Document".

Here's what the back says:

"This is a picture of the Altar to "Edison the Saint". Outside of San Jose, Costa Rica; we went out to see a collector of orchids, the season was not right for the orchid to be in bloom, but the man who owned them proved to be "quite a person". He was man 80 years who had come down into Costa Rica from Iowa as a lad of seventeen, married a mature girl and raised a family there. Evidently, he had been (unreadable) in the saint legends of the Catholic Church thruout these years and finally decided he would have a saint of his own. He had carved a beautiful altar showing the works of Edison for the benefit of mankind- when Mr. Edison heard of this man's admiration for him, he sent down to have a three foot signed portrait of himself."

The photograph on the front side of the picture shows the signed picture of Edison, surrounded by carvings of his inventions- the phonograph, the lightbulb, the movie camera, and one other I can't recognize. Bizarre.