A Note of Personal Privilege
It was on this date, June 27th, in 1922 that a couple welcomed their third child into the world in a suburb of Boston. They themselves had each emigrated to this country less than a decade before…met, married, and now had three children under the age of six.
Soon came the Great Depression, and the young family made the move half a continent away to Iowa, where other family members had settled. The couple raised their children, then moved again in 1940 shortly after their youngest had graduated from high school…this time only a half-hour car ride away, where they started their own business.
The now 18-year-old started college at the University of Iowa, but soon a second World War took him away from the classroom. After the war, he and his brother worked with their father in that family business; ultimately, that youngest son took over the business after his father died.
As you might have figured out by now, that boy born 100 years ago today was my father. He himself became a father relatively late, turning 41 shortly after I was born. Like his father before him, he too died too young.
He never finished college, but for as long as I could remember, each Monday he laid two quarters out on the counter–one each for my brother and for me–to be put in our respective college funds. Obviously, those weekly quarters didn’t add up to much. But they made their point.
I wound up graduating from the same college he once attended. And even though his health was not the best, he was there for every minute of every ceremony, to watch his eldest claim the diploma he was not able to get. It was our last shared memory, for he left us a few weeks later, just days after his 63rd birthday. But he did so having achieved that goal, which I now know was so important to him.
So permit me, if you will, this moment to gratefully mark the day when a good man came into this world.
