It Doesn’t take Wealth to Leave an Inheritance

Recently on her blog, my mother wrote about her father who died when she was only nine years old.  My brother responded with great insight:

 

It is interesting and inspiring to think that a farmer — one who never traveledwidely, who had little formal education, and who, after raising his olderchildren on other folks’ farms, fighting boll weevil and depression, had to move his large family to a small mill town — manages in 2007, seventy-five years after his death, to still exert a positive influence.  We have a wonderful heritage — one of which Iam enormously proud.

 

My own father, who died 20 years ago, left anindelible mark on his children and innumerable other people because of hisauthenticity, generous spirit and the force of his personality. [See mysister’s blog, Daddy’s Roses].

 

Two very different men in temperament, from twodifferent eras, who lived very different lives in extraordinarily different circumstances, but each had profoundly positive influence — proving once againthat it doesn’t take wealth to leave an inheritance.  Here are principles that work:

 

First, to be a great dad, a man must be a person ofcharacter and integrity. He should lead a life of transparency that