The book Cheaper by the Dozen written by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine
Gilbreth Carey was the life story of the Gilbreth family before Mr. Gilbreth died. Frank
Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth were two of the twelve children. Mr. and Mrs.
Gilbreth, both industrial engineers, ran a firm, Gilbreth, Inc. which was employed as
"efficiency experts" by major industrial plants in the United States, Britain,
and Germany.
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth had twelve children, six girls and six boys. The names of the
children are Anne, Ernestine, Frank, Bill, Lillian, Martha, Jack, Jane, Fred, Mart, Bob,
and Dan. The older children's job is to take care of the youngest and the mother took care
of the intermediate children and babies.
Nothing was consider more a sin than wasting time, that is why the father, Frank, times
himself trying to go as fast as he can with almost everything. He timed himself buttoning
his shirt to see which way is faster, top-bottom or bottom-top. He timed himself shaving
to see which way took longer, using two brushes to apply the shaving cream of one. He
found that two were faster. Frank, the father also experiment on which ways was faster,
using two razors of one. He found that one was faster, because with two he cut himself so
many times it took him twice as much time to cover the cuts up.
The book talked about how smart Frank, the Father was. He painted mores code on the
walls of their summerhouse to teach it to his children. When the children decoded the
message written on the wall, it revealed a clue that tells the child who decoded it where
a prize was hidden. He painted also all of the planets and stars you can see in the sky on
the walls of their summerhouse to teach his kids astrology.
A neat power that the father, Frank, had was that as soon as he look at a person he
would know their nationality. When ever the family would go somewhere were you would have
to pay by the person, such as a toll bridge, Frank, the father, would take one look at the
person and know that their nationality was Irish. The father, Frank, would say, "do
my Irishmen come cheaper by the dozen?" The owner would probably say, "Irishmen?
If you are Irish, you should not pay a toll on my road. Your trip is on the house."
At the end of the book the father, Frank is called for work in Germany. He decided to
walk to the train station, which is only a few blocks away from their house. When he
arrived at the train station he called Lillie, the mother and told her that he was fine,
but before he hung up she heard him fall to the ground. The mother told all of her
neighbors to go look for all of the children who were out playing. Frank, the boy, thought
that one of the girls was hit by a car. When the children finally arrived home they saw
the second youngest child, Jack, sit on the front step saying, "Daddy's dead."
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