Comments about a person’s life and work often praise a lasting legacy. A sports figure reaches some trivial milestone, and that becomes his or her legacy. An organization or institution becomes the legacy of the person who founded, funded, or led it. Architects design a building that becomes a legacy. Streets are named for a local, state, or national celebrity as a legacy, even if people who use the streets don’t remember the reason. Legacies are interminable in our media. Enough already!
We hear regularly about legacies being erased because of accusations of wrongdoing by the person who was honored. Signs and statues are torn down. Streets and buildings are renamed. It is as though a legacy can be removed because a reputation is soiled. A word that has become so fluid and transient that it is meaningless might well be retired.
It is pathetic when an arrogant person who neither has good character nor cares about others tries to create memorials and collect various types of insignias as legacies.
The only important legacy for any person is the lasting impact for good or ill a person has on others. An African wise saying is that as long as a person is remembered by name by others, that person is among the living dead. They have not departed but continue to influence people who remember them. That is their continuing legacy.
We realize that negative legacies continue for generations. Parents abuse children and lead them astray. They ruin their children’s lives, and on it passes through generations.
Negative influence reaches beyond families. A boss upbraids an employee, he goes home and slaps his wife, she whips her son unmercifully, and he goes out and kicks the family dog.
We must stay alert to the ways in which our actions affect the lives of those around us.
The best legacy for anyone is the good influence that he or she has on enhancing the welfare, the future, and the current conditions of their family, friends, neighbors, and any with whom they come in contact.
Many parents regard their children who live upstanding lives to be their most valuable legacy. Some children follow our best examples and not our failures. Care of our families and especially our children will bear good fruit for decades, and many rise up to bless and praise their ancestors.
We would be wise to do whatever is possible to increase positive influences in Crawfordsville and Montgomery County. We will live with the consequences.
Our neighbors who lead churches, organization, and institutions that assist people leave beautiful legacies in the lives of those who are helped. Volunteers undergird that assistance.
‘BE KIND’ is found on signs posted around the community encouraging us to be kind and respectful to everyone we meet in our daily activities.
Those who have extra resources can give funds and establish endowments with trusted institutions such as Wabash College and the Montgomery County Community Foundation. The individuals whose lives are enhanced by the gives are a worthy legacy.
Mr. Eli Lilly served as trustee of Wabash College. His gifts to the college and many other institutions continue to enhance the lives of many. A bronze bust of Mr. Lilly is on the stairway inside Lilly Library even though he insisted that recognition be given to the Lilly family and not to him personally. Current students rub the top of his head as they go up and down the stairs. That is a humorous recognition of his positive impact on their lives and lives of many others.
Those whose influence is negative will not have many wishing to create legacies to honor them. Those whose influence is positive in the lives of others do not need flimsy or temporary legacies. We can do without all of them.
Raymond Brady Williams, Crawfordsville, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus, contributed this guest column.
