Last spring my husband decided that our big storage closet needed to be reorganized, something he is very good at. At the end he handed me a stack of boxes and said “Do something with these.” One was a mantilla my grandmother had worn to meet two Popes. Another turned out to be a flag flown over the US Capitol and given to my grandmother at the time that the vocational high school in Springfield Massachusetts was renamed in honor of her late husband my grandfather Roger Lowell Putnam.

Recently the high school got a brand new facility, so I decided that the high school should have that flag and fly it proudly. Here is what I said at the ribbon cutting so faculty and students could know my grandfather as a person, not just a name.

I am now almost old enough to remember my grandfather at the age I am now. He and my mother, both dedicated community leaders, are my heroes. It seems that every thing I touch in the community has somehow been touched by one or both of them before me. Recently I had the pleasure of attending the 60th anniversary of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, only to discover that my grandfather had had a hand in starting that. Later that week, I got an email from the new Executive Director of the Connecticut River Watershed Council asking if I was related to a Roger Putnam of Springfield and learned that he had been one of the founding members of that organization 60 years ago. These are both organizations to which I had given my time without knowing his prior involvement.

Sometimes I wish I was original and doing something bold and new. Most times I am ever so grateful to have two such stellar role models for me to follow.