She must’ve faced more frustrations during her lifetime than most inventors. Her inventions were denied by one country and then accepted by another not once but twice. Both of the denials came from her own homeland. Bessie Blount was an inventor and a physical therapist. Her work wasn’t ever fully appreciated by her native America but she would later become remembered and recognized for it.

Bessie Blount was born in Hickory, Virginia in 1914. She was a physical therapist and an inventor of apparatus that was designed to help the amputees that suffered permanent injuries in World War II.

Blount’s first invention was a feeding device and she designed it in 1951. She would later present it to the American Veteran’s Administration but they wouldn’t be interested. The French government eventually bought it.

As a physical therapist, she later discovered the need for an emesis basin. She designed one and took it to the American Veteran’s Administration. Again, she was told "not interested" so she sold once more out of the country. This time, Belgium bought.

In 1969, Bessie Blount’s life pursuits changed. She studied to become a forensic scientist and went into law enforcement. While she was a forensic scientist, she read slave papers and Civil War documents. In 1977, she became the first African-American woman to go to work for England’s Scotland Yard.