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After contracting a case of tuberculosis, Leedskalnin moved to the warmer climate of Florida around 1919, where he purchased a small piece of land in Florida City. Over the next 20 years, Leedskalnin putatively constructed and lived within a massive coral monument he called "Rock Gate Park", dedicated to the girl who had left him years before. Working alone at night, Leedskalnin eventually quarried and sculpted over 1,100 short tons (997903kg) of coral into a monument that would later be known as the Coral Castle. Leedskalnin gave polite, but cryptic answers to visitors' questions regarding his construction methods, which to this day remain a mystery. In spite of his private nature, he eventually opened his monument to the public, offering tours for 10 cents. He was a surprisingly accommodating host, even cooking hot dogs for visiting children in a pressure cooker of his own invention.
This building was originally located in Florida City in the 1920s; then in the mid 1930s Leedskalnin moved it single-handedly to its present location on a site near Homestead, Florida. In December 1951, he left a note on his front gate which read "Going to the Hospital", and rode a bus to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. He died three days later of malnutrition due to stomach cancer, at the age of 64.
*Magnetic Base
Reader, if for any reason you do not like the things I say in the little book, I left just as much space as I used, so you can write your own opinion opposite it and see if you can do better.
The Author
In the first section, Leedskalnin vents his anger at his "Sweet Sixteen", arguing that girls should be kept pure, and that boys are primarily a soiling influence upon them. On page 4 of A book in every home, Leedskalnin writes:
Everything we do should be for some good purpose but as everybody knows there is nothing good that can come to a girl from a fresh boy. When a girl is sixteen or seventeen years old, she is as good as she ever will be, but when a boy is sixteen years old, he is then fresher than in all his stages of development. He is then not big enough to work but he is too big to be kept in a nursery and then to allow such a fresh thing to soil a girl — it could not work on my girl. Now I will tell you about soiling. Anything that is done, if it is done with the right party it is all right, but when it is done with the wrong party, it is soiling, and concerning those fresh boys with the girls, it is wrong every time.
The second section continues along the theme of moral education, with several aphorisms aimed at parents regarding the proper way to raise children. The last, "Political" section, reveals that the reclusive Leedskalnin had strong political views. He advocates voting for property owners only (and in proportion to their holdings), and argues that "Anyone who is too weak to make his own living is not strong enough to vote."
Some writers have suggested that Leedskalnin's booklet contains further information on his electromagnetic research and philosophies encoded in its pages, and the blank pages are provided for the reader to fill in their decrypted solutions. It has also been suggested that Leedskalnin's frequent referral to his "Sweet Sixteen" may in fact refer to the numerological and/or scientific relevance of the number sixteen to his research and theories.
The Brooklyn-based history band, Piñataland, recorded a song about Leedskalnin entitled "Latvian Bride" for their 2003 album Songs for the Forgotten Future Vol. 1.
The Billy Idol song "Sweet Sixteen" was written about the events in Leedskalnin's life. Some memorable lyrics include: "Someone's built a candy castle for my sweet sixteen/Someone's built a candy house to house her in."
Category:1887 births Category:1951 deaths Category:American sculptors Category:American people of Latvian descent Category:Latvian sculptors Category:People from Riga Category:People from Livonia
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