In 1934, at the age of 63, Elizabeth Kingsley published the first double-crostic puzzle (a pre-cursor to the crossword puzzle) for the Saturday Review. She went on to write puzzles for the New York Times from 1943 to 1952.
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In 1979, at the age of 64, Rose Totino was granted a patent for the first freezable pizza dough. Inspired by the enormous success of the pizza shop she owned with her husband, Rose formulated the recipe for frozen pizzas that customers could heat and eat at home. She worked with Pilsbury to perfect the crust and later became Pilsbury’s first female corporate vice president. Over 300 million Totino’s pizzas are sold each year.
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In 1985, AZT was patented as a treatment for HIV. Gertrude B. Elion, 77 years old at the time, worked on the drug. Gertrude was a 1988 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. “I had no specific bent toward science until my grandfather died of cancer,” said Gertrude. “I decided nobody should suffer that much.”

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In 1985, a patent was granted to 68-year-old Marion Donovan for DentaLoop, a two-ply dental floss that didn’t have to be wrapped around one’s finger . She thought of the idea while watching her husband struggle with floss each morning. Marion, a prolific inventor, was granted nearly 25 patents over the course of her life, all for household products. She is best known for the waterproof diaper. In a 1975 interview with Barbara Walters, she said she often asked herself, “What do I think will help a lot of people and most certainly will help me?”
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In 1975, a patent for the first life-like prosthetic breast was issued to a woman named Ruth Handler. Ruth was best-known for her invention of the Barbie Doll in the late 1950s and for becoming the CEO of Mattel. She was in her early 40s when the Barbie Doll debuted, but her diagnosis of breast cancer in her 50s prompted her to develop her second great innovation. After her mastectomy, Ruth was frustrated with the options for prosthetic breasts. “The people in this business are men who don’t have to wear these,” said Ruth. She developed, Nearly Me, the first realistic version of a woman’s breast made from foam and silicon. First Lady Betty Ford wore one, and Nearly Me was sold to Kimberly-Clark in 1991.