University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

While I never knew my paternal grandfather, my father spoke of him often. As a child, my father showed me this book of poems that my grandfather had written and read some to me. My father was one of nine children and along with other poems, my grandfather had written poems about each of his children in the book. What I did not realize then and would only come to appreciate as an adult was how well my grandfather knew his children and the adults they would become.

When my father passed away in 1998, my family decided that at his memorial service, we would read the poem that my grandfather had written. My brothers and I had not read the poem in years, but when my second oldest brother read it to the audience, it was stunning how the poem reflected my father and the man that he came to be.

It is an honor to have his book placed in an academic library. It allows me to honor my father and my grandfather.