The Inventor of Post(TM) Cereals

Charles William Post was born in Springfield, Illinois on October 26, 1854. His father was Charles Rollin Post, and his mother was Caroline Cushman Lathrop. Young Charles graduated from high school, then he attended what was then called, the "Illinois Industrial University." (Today it's known as the "University of Illinois".) Post dropped out of college after just two years in search of work. His search found him becoming a salesman, and even a store owner. Post even invented and patented several pieces of farm equipment. But Charles William Post's real calling would come much later in life, at a low period, when he became "The Inventor of Post Cereals."

While young Post's working life was industrious, his private life had its shares of ups and down. Twenty-year-old Charles William Post married a woman named Ella Letitia Merriweather on November 4, 1874. The union produced a daughter, Marjorie Merriweather Post. The marriage lasted thirty years, but the final seven years found the couple separated. They divorced in 1904.

C.W. Post married again on November 7, 1874, to a woman named Leila Young from Battle Creek, Michigan.

In between those years, in 1892, when Post was thirty-eight years old, his health failed him. He went to the Battle Creek Sanitarium to recover from his illness. Interestingly enough, the sanitarium was owned and operated by a man named Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg believed that a combination of proper diet, exercise, good posture, fresh air, and sufficient rest would keep people healthy and well. Kellogg's beliefs interested C.W. Post while he stayed at the doctor's institution. The doctor's "prescriptions" would profoundly change one of his patient's lives. They would enable Post to become "The Inventor of Post Cereals."