Henry Ford was born in 1863 on a farm in a little town just outside of Dearborn, Michigan. His father was William Ford, an Irishman who came to America with his parents in 1847. His mother's name was Mary Litigot. She was born in the United States to Dutch parents. She died when Henry was 12. Henry only attended school until he was 15, and in any spare time he had, he worked on his father's farm. He became interested in cars when he was 13, and he came to the conclusion that, " I was by instinct an engineer." He was always eager to repair his father's farm machinery, and even helped other farmers in his town with their machinery problems. He went around and repaired his neighbor's watches and clocks that had either stopped, or were just broken. He never wanted to get paid for fixing things, but just had a "burning curiosity" about mechanical things. Henry's dad did not like Henry fixing the whole neighborhoods mechanical problems, because he thought Henry should charge money; also also wanted Henry to be a farmer. For this reason, Henry did all his watch fixing at night because his dad strictly forbade it. When Henry was 16, he left home and was apprenticed at The Michigan Car Company Store and after that he became an apprentice to The James Flower and Brothers Machine Shop, were he worked for 10 hours a day. In 1882, he became a real journeyman, which is a man that is fully qualified in a certain subject.