For decades, Frances Gabe did not clean her house, nor did anyone clean it for her. Yet for all that time, it was spotless.

Ms. Gabe, a once-celebrated inventor who died in obscurity late last year, was the creator, and long the sole inhabitant, of the world’s only self-cleaning house.

In January, the only public announcement of Ms. Gabe’s death appeared on the website of The Newberg Graphic, covering the Oregon community where she had long made her home. Spanning barely two dozen words, it gave little more than her death date — Dec. 26, 2016 — and her age, 101.

But between Ms. Gabe’s birth, on June 23, 1915, and her death lay, unheralded, the life of a true American original, equal parts quixotic dreamer and accomplished visionary.