(Illustration by Biba Kayewich for American Essence)
The young, 8-year-old Andy eyed the baseball arching high in the air, down the right field line into foul territory, as it left the sandlot playing field. The wayward ball sailed 35 feet into a bordering cornfield and rested approximately 300 feet from its origination: home plate.
For most of the crowd watching the baseball game that Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1926, the ball was out of sight and out of mind. But not for Andy. The nascent baseball enthusiast was currently a temporary truant of St. Michael’s Orphanage, which housed more than 400 children on 340 acres of farmland. The orphanage bordered the borough of Hopewell, a small town of 2,000 residents and seven working farms, nestled in the valley of central New Jersey’s Sourland Mountains.
One child, Andy, was missing—his absence yet unnoticed—but for good reason. Andy was on a mission. He and his baseball buddies needed a ball for their daily pickup games. This foul ball was the fortuitous moment he had been patiently waiting for.
Andy rose, his eyes tracking the ball’s flight. “Yes,” he silently declared, “this is it.”
He sprinted into the cornfield, disappearing among the multiple rows of the 10-foot stalks of corn. Spying the ball, he snatched it, jammed it into his front pocket, and then ran as fast as his legs could carry him back to the orphanage.
Game on!
Andy loved baseball—long considered America’s pastime. He passed that love of the game, and the game’s guiding principles, on to his family, friends, and the many players he coached through his life. Andy was a melting pot child of early-20th-century America: a product of immigrant diversity. His father was Italian and his mother was Irish. Andy and his three younger siblings ended up in St. Michael’s soon after the untimely death of their mother, before her 30th birthday.
But this is not a story of lifelong disadvantages. Rather, it’s a quintessential American story of how baseball and its national game melded values into Andy. A story of how a rural, small town in America, inculcated with old-fashioned patriotism and a hardscrabble work ethic, served Andy a slice of Norman Rockwell’s America and forged for him an America worthy of love, veneration, and preservation.
Andy never returned that errant baseball. However, he did return to Hopewell as a 24-year-old adult to raise a family, start and operate a retail gasoline business, and help found the local Little League Baseball as well as organize/coach a local baseball team. In fact, Andy was considered by many to be the Branch Rickey (American baseball player, coach, and civil rights leader) of the neighboring Hunterdon County Baseball League. Andy introduced the first black players to league play in the 1950s with his Hopewell town team. In World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy, leaving his wife and two children behind, and served in the Pacific Theater aboard a PT-Boat (patrol torpedo boat) that sunk two Japanese destroyers, during combat, in the waters of New Guinea and the Philippines. For Andy, America was not just worth loving, it was worth fighting for.
The intrinsic values of baseball and the community cohesiveness of Hopewell are captured in the following nine truisms that Andy espoused and lived by. They spring mostly from the great American playbook that is baseball and are rooted in the small-town sensibility that was Hopewell. They’re what makes America great. They make America worth revering, worth heralding, worth celebrating, and worth loving.
No one bats a thousand, but never stop trying. Failure is not condemnable, but failing to try is.
Run 90 feet. Home plate to first base is 90 feet. Give 100 percent effort: Run 90 feet.
When you get your pitch, jump on it. Don’t let opportunity pass you by.
Take two, hit to right. Hit the ball where it will do most toward achieving success. In baseball that means scoring runs. In life, you achieve success through completing your assigned task.
Let your bat and glove do your talking. Perform deeds, not (boastful) words.
Hustle, always hustle. Give every endeavor your best effort.
Recognize the meritorious efforts of others. Give credit to others. Your competitor or your fellow worker are trying to be the best they can be as well.
Look for two, look for two. Look for the opportunity to go for the next base. One’s reach should always exceed one’s grasp.
Make something happen. Both baseball and America reward tireless effort and perseverance. In order to succeed, you must do more than show up: You must make something happen.
Why do you love America? What makes it worth celebrating? What moves you about the people and places that make up our country? Tell us in a personal essay of about 600 to 80 words. We welcome you to send your submission to: [email protected]
Mary Heffernan at Five Marys Farms, with free-range Black Angus cattle in the background. (Christa Renee)
For Mary Heffernan, being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle, one that demands complete attention and commitment—and, sometimes, a willingness to sleep on the floor.
At age 44, she and her husband, Brian, run Five Marys Farm, a ranch in Siskiyou County, California, with free-range, pasture-raised Black Angus cattle, Berkshire hogs, and Navajo-Churro sheep. They also run an online and brick-and-mortar shop, a restaurant and bar, and a butchery; and they offer two online courses, teaching small business essentials to budding entrepreneurs and ranch skills to kids. Juggling all of this, while raising four daughters (all named Mary), may seem ambitious, but Heffernan has been on this journey all her life. She has had, in total, 19 to 20 businesses along the way.
Five Marys Farms’s Navajo- Churro sheep are raised on pasture grasses and alfalfa. (Tiana Sheridan)
“I always had this spark,” Heffernan said. “I was the oldest of four, and I was motivated by wanting my own money in the bank, and making my own decisions.” At age 9, she started a T-shirt stenciling business and had booths at craft fairs. At 13, she opened a backyard summer camp for 15 to 20 kids called Mary’s Fun Summer Camp, which she ran annually until she was 18. As a child, teen, and later college student looking for income to help pay her way through school, “I was just always looking for chances to start businesses,” she said. “I knew that with a lot of hard work, I could make an idea happen.”
Heffernan’s biggest inspiration was her grandfather. “He was a serial entrepreneur,” she recalled. “He always had a new idea on the horizon. He would drive me around picking up checks from his rental properties and looking at empty buildings. He would say, ‘What could we put in there? We could make it an ice cream shop, or a taco bar.’ He inspired me to realize, ‘Wow, you can just think up an idea and make it a business.’”
Before the ranch, Heffernan and her husband owned a number of businesses in Silicon Valley, including a law firm and two restaurants. “It’s hard to screw up there,” she said with a laugh. “But we left the land of opportunity for the land of hard work when we moved onto the ranch.”
Working in the restaurant business, they had become frustrated with the lack of high-quality, grass-fed beef from animals raised and butchered humanely. So they decided to do it themselves. In 2013, they bought the historic Sharps Gulch Ranch, 1,800 acres of land in the mountains of Northern California, and tried to run the ranch remotely through a ranch manager and weekend visits. By eight weeks in, they realized they couldn’t do things halfway: They decided to move there and run it full time.
A day in Heffernan’s life entails a mix of ranch work, business matters, and taking care of her family. (Christa Renee)
“We left a life of comfort in suburbia to live in a 760-square-foot house with no heat besides the woodstove, no dishwasher, no amenities,” Heffernan said. They often slept on the floor in front of the woodstove because that was the warmest place to be.
But despite such a dramatic change in lifestyle, Heffernan and her family immediately saw its benefits. “We didn’t have that kind of satisfaction in the Bay Area working in front of computers all day,” she said. “Here, we saved a calf’s life; my daughter delivered baby lambs; we dug a ditch to divert the water to our field.” By going back to the farming roots of her own and her husband’s families, Heffernan has found it easier to teach her core values to their four daughters. “On the ranch, they see that having a skill set to be hireable [doesn’t mean] only an education; it’s knowing how to work hard, and feeling the euphoria of coming in dog-tired at the end of the day knowing that you can be proud of your work,” she said.
MaryMarjorie (Maisie) Heffernan cradles a farm cat. (Tiana Sheridan)
Heffernan is also grateful that their lifestyle still gives her opportunities to grow her family business and make a good living. They went on to open a restaurant and bar, Five Marys Burgerhouse, in 2017, and a craft butchery shop in 2021. They published two cookbooks, sharing their favorite recipes for using their meats and feeding their family and frequent guests to the ranch, in 2020 and 2022. Thanks to the internet, they can sell meat not only to locals at their farm store in town, but to someone in New York, Hawaii, or Alaska.
“That is so meaningful to me,” Heffernan said. “I can live the life that I want, back to the land, back to my roots, while using technology to make a living. It allows me to open up a window to so many people to show them our world and what we’re doing.” She uses social media to share her family’s life on the ranch and build a connection with her customers: “That’s partly why our business has been successful and people trust buying from us.”
MaryTeresa (Tessa) and MaryJane (JJ) Heffernan practice their rodeo skills at Five Marys Farms. (Tiana Sheridan)The girls all have their own horses to ride, and they compete in various rodeo events. (Tiana Sheridan)
Empowering Entrepreneurs
Now, Heffernan is taking her experience to become a mentor for other aspiring entrepreneurs. She’s a strong advocate for taking risks and jumping in with both feet: “You need to be willing to do everything you can to make it happen,” she said. A big part of her confidence comes from the tools she has in her arsenal. “If I have an idea and I want to make it happen, I know I can build a website myself. I can design a new logo. I know that I can get the nitty-gritty done fairly quickly: get the insurance in place, form a payroll program. Those things all seem really daunting at first to someone starting a business, and they are.”
She doesn’t shy away from talking about the financial aspect: “If you really want to build something that is going to sustain you and your family, you have to look toward profitability.”
Heffernan cooks a recipe from her first cookbook, “Five Marys Ranch Raised Cookbook,” or the “Home & Family” daytime talk show during the fall of 2020. (Tiana Sheridan)
To help equip new entrepreneurs with the tools they need, Heffernan created her M5 Entrepreneurs program, an online course structured as a “road map” through 40 different topics, from shipping logistics to social media. “Nobody’s going to teach you how to have an idea or how to work hard, but having all the tools to take your idea and make it a reality is so important,” she said. The course also includes access to an app, a community where participants can ask questions and feel like they’re not alone on their journey.
Since its inception five years ago, the program has had over 2,500 enrollments, with participants from the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the UK. Their burgeoning businesses have included flower farmers, bakeries, creameries, and saddle makers.
One success story that stands out to Heffernan is of a woman in upstate New York who bought an apple orchard with her husband and started an apple business. Last winter, Heffernan ordered their special holiday box, which arrived beautifully packaged—following the program’s advice. A letter enclosed for Heffernan thanked her for the courses, telling her that leaving an unfulfilling job to work on the apple farm seemed scary and impossible, but the couple gained the confidence and tools to do it and now have a thriving business shipping all over the country. “The most rewarding thing as a mentor,” Heffernan said, “is seeing people take the tools and thrive.”
The sunroom is Carter’s favorite room in the house, for having the most natural light—and thus the most plants. Frank the fiddle-leaf fig, his first houseplant, stands tall right of center. (Photography by Hilton Carter)
It started with Frank. Frank the fiddle-leaf fig, that is.
When Hilton Carter bought—and then named—his first houseplant in 2014, he didn’t know it was the start of a life-changing journey into indoor greenery. Now, Frank is the ceiling-brushing star of Carter’s Baltimore home of 300-some plants, and Carter, a fine artist and filmmaker by training, has fully embraced plants as his palette.
Along with his work as a plant and interior stylist, Carter has written four plant care and styling books—“Wild at Home,” “Wild Interiors,” “Wild Creations,” and the recently released “Living Wild”—hosted a workshop series on the Magnolia Network; launched his own line of products as well as a collection for Target; and opened a plant shop, called Green Neighbor, with a partner in his hometown of Baltimore. He spoke with American Essence about his journey to plant styling, how plants made him a better person, and what new plant owners need to know to set themselves up for success.
American Essence: What are the unique challenges—and rewards—of decorating with houseplants?
Hilton Carter: There’s a lot more consideration that goes into plant styling than, say, interior styling. It isn’t just picking a corner and dropping in a plant. You’re dealing with a living element, and understanding not only how it fits in the space for now, but also how it will change and morph and grow over time. You’ve got to think about the future.
I always start with the fact that light is going to be what makes sure that plant stays happy and alive. So you lead with light. It’s difficult to go into the styling portion if you’re not well aware of the care. Let’s focus on care, get that in our back pocket, and then we can have fun when it comes to styling, and that’s where my new book comes in.
A plant is not an inanimate object; it’s a living thing that is giving back to you. It’s providing not just a “look,” but actually a lot of good energy. It’s a symbiotic sort of relationship that is happening between us and plants. We always find ourselves chasing what nature provides. All of the studies show how people become more creative and happy and relaxed and carefree when they are exposed to sunlight and nature itself, so when you find ways to sprinkle a little bit of that outside world inside of your home, there can only be good that comes from it.
Mr. Carter: About 300 that I keep in the house most of the year. I will say it has become more difficult for me to keep my ducks in a row, but like everything else in your life, you have to make time for it if you care for it. I have a daughter who wants all of my time, a wife that understands that my daughter wants all of my time, a dog that definitely doesn’t understand that, and all my plants are like, “Hey, I know we’re probably number four on your list, but please, please make sure you make your rounds.” So whenever I have a moment, I’ll always set some time in my day to check in on my plants.
It isn’t like you can water every seven days and walk away; they don’t all operate that way, especially depending on changes in the seasons, or their placement. You’ve always got to be in tune with them, and you just check in. The fact that my plants also are a part of my job makes it a lot easier for me, and I’ll totally be transparent about that.
AE: Tell us about your own journey with plants. How has learning to care for them affected you as a person?
Mr. Carter: Before, I was a very high-strung, stressed-out individual. Relationships for me were very tough; I never really had an understanding of the back and forth that needs to be part of a good relationship—the give and the take, the “nurture what nurtures you” part of it.
In the process of caring for plants, I learned a lot about how to care for the other living things in my life. I studied how to be patient—and patience is one of the biggest things you need when it comes to plant care. You’ve got to understand the small nuances, and the changes that can happen when you move a plant from one space to another; they’re all individuals. You can sample that and sprinkle it onto every other living thing that you have in your life, and you will be better off. You’ll see those things thrive. That is what plants have done for me.
I started to see it in my relationships—see that more nurturing side of myself come out. I would pay more attention to how individuals in my life operated, and where they were in their emotions, and how to be more delicate, be more understanding, be more patient. I guess it isn’t a coincidence that a year after I completely fell head over heels for indoor greenery, I met the person who ended up being my wife and the mother of my child.
People say that plants make people happy. Well, I’ve been very sad seeing a sad plant, so I can’t say plants make you happy; it’s the care you put into a plant that will make you happy, especially if the plant is thriving. And I haven’t been happier in my life since I introduced plants into it.
AE: Before you became a professional plant stylist, you were an artist and filmmaker. Was there a particular “aha moment” when you realized plants could be a bigger part of your life and career?
Mr. Carter: The aha moment was definitely with Frank the fiddle-leaf fig. It started with, “Oh no, this very expensive bit of decor that I thought I would buy for myself is starting to lose itself, the leaves have fallen off!” It was then through figuring out the process of care that I was just like, “I need to be more involved, I need to be more in tune with this plant, I’ve got to name you so I am now bonded to you, and if you start to struggle, I feel it.” I would be like, “What is going on with you, Frank? I thought we were in this together. What have I done wrong? Talk to me.”
With plant care, you can set yourself up for success. All the times you might feel like, “Man, I’m no good at anything”—if you’re stuck in that position and you bring a plant into your life, you’re focusing on that plant and a new leaf unfurls, that is something you did. Because you could have stuck it right into a closet—dead. But you made the decision to put it into the right light, to pot it in the right size pot, to water it, rotate it. Your care developed a new leaf. That is that serotonin hit: “I’m good! I’m doing something good!”
For me, I was getting so many of those hits that I realized, I’m actually really good at this because of the things that I’m deciding to do. And then I decided, well, if I can do it here, why don’t I focus that energy toward my relationships?
That is when I realized that when it comes to this, I feel my true self—I feel the joy of life in me. This needs to be my world. Because I am now not only giving to someone creatively, but also giving them something that can hopefully help change them in a positive way emotionally, and not just for the moment, but throughout the rest of their lives.
That’s something you also learn as someone who tends to plants: that you then want to share that. I’m sure so many people who love plants around you are like, “You’ve got to have a plant! Take a cutting!” Those are everything to plant people. If I gave someone a piece of Frank, that’s like if I gave them one of my fingers. Someone spent a lot of time and effort to care for this thing, and now they’re like, “Here’s a piece of it.”
AE: In your new book, you have a section on styling plants in kids’ rooms. How have you raised your daughter, Holland, to care for plants?
Mr. Carter: We’re still trying to teach her how to be gentle, not just pull every single leaf off of a plant. But it’s working. She’s a very gentle individual.
I think the idea of surrounding any sort of living being with greenery is important. When it comes to kids, bringing plants into their nurseries or their rooms can not only bring life to their space, but also create learning moments for them: patience, tenderness, care for one another, how do you stay on a schedule? How do you treat life and death? That could be a learning moment: when a leaf dies while another leaf is unfurling, talking and having that conversation.
AE: When you take on an interior plant styling project, whether you work with existing plants or bring in new ones, how do you make sure your clients give them the care they need?
Mr. Carter: I can’t really make anyone do anything, but I do leave them with a care sheet, and I do check in. Whenever you bring a plant into a new space, you’re going to see a little bit of leaf loss because they’re trying to acclimate to the space, so I have to make people aware of that so that they don’t jump to the conclusion that they are just terrible at plants. I try my very best to set people up for success, and I always make myself available.
I will say, most of them, if they do kill their plants, they’re definitely not going to tell me. I already don’t get invited to certain people’s homes because they think I’m going to judge them because of their plants. I don’t judge. I just have side conversations with the plants telling them that one day they’ll make it out of that situation alive.
I’m not here to reprimand anyone. I just drill down the fact that the plants are living things in their heads, and hopefully, at the end of the day, they’ll go, “You know what, I know Hilton’s gonna probably be a little disappointed in me, but I need him to help me.” That is where you turn someone who’s very nonchalant about plants into someone like myself.
AE: Are there any exciting new projects in the works for you?
Mr. Carter: There are, but in order to tell you, I’d have to, uh, overwater you.
Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Tips for Beginners
Ready to add greenery to your home? Hilton Carter has some advice.
Lead With Light
Before you even consider buying a plant, Carter says, consider the quality of light in your home. Then, “get a plant that is into the type of light that you have. It’s setting yourself up for success. If you have a dark home, certain plants will never do well.” There are low-light tolerant plants, Carter notes, such as snake plants, ZZ plants, and dumb canes—“but I use the word ‘tolerant,’ and underline it, because they’re not thriving.”
Do Your Research
Next, you’ll need to think about factors such as the best planter size and material for your plant’s needs, its preferred moisture level, and how often it needs to be watered. “If you’re a novice, you’ve just got to do the work,” Carter says. “Think about it as if you are bringing in a new pet. It can’t just be an off-the-cuff decision; it has to be well thought-out.”
Build a Relationship
Contrary to common advice to start with a low-maintenance plant, Carter isn’t afraid to recommend a needier variety to a novice: “I think if something is asking for your attention every single day or every other day, you’re probably better off to do that work than to go for a plant that only needs watering every three weeks.” A beginner might simply forget—or be skeptical and overwater.
There’s another big bonus: “I love the fact that it’s making them more involved in the life of that plant. That’s how it gets easier, because now they’re more in tune with what a plant needs.”
“Living Wild,” published in March 2023 by CICO Books, is Carter’s fourth book.
Styling Wild
Once you’ve gotten a handle on houseplant care, you can go wild with styling them in your home. Here are some of Hilton Carter’s favorite ideas.
New Heights
Whether it’s sitting a large plant on top of an island, hanging one from the ceiling, enshrining it literally on a pedestal, or perching it on the edge of a bookshelf with leaves trailing down the side, “bringing plants higher into a space, I think having those moments in the home is very fun,” Carter says.
The Walls Are Alive
Mounting plants on a wall adds unexpected depth to a room—you’re making a hard, flat surface “literally come alive,” Carter says. “I love the idea of breaking up a gallery wall with something that’s alive.”
Conversation Starters
For a reliably “transformative” effect, Carter prescribes a “statement plant—a centerpiece that people are just drawn to as soon as they walk in. It’s something that anchors a space.” It could be a singular plant with an eye-catching shape, color, or size; or an artfully assembled arrangement, such as a kokedama (Japanese moss ball).
Bringing the ‘Wow’
For serious plant stylists, consider the “designer plant”: Carter employs these high-profile (and often high-budget) stunners with unique patterns, colors, and textures to complement pieces of home decor. Two that he predicts will be especially popular in 2023: the Alocasia cuprea, for its “beautiful copper shimmer and unique foliage shape and texture,” and the Monstera albo, for its “stunning marbled variegation and ability to climb tall in any space.”
Portrait of music composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein at a piano, during the development of their new musical 'Pipe Dream', 1955. (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
On the evening of March 31, 1943, American musical theater entered its Golden Age. That was the night the curtain at Broadway’s St. James Theatre rose on an old woman churning butter and a cowboy praising the beauty of the morning. It was the night “Oklahoma!” proclaimed the arrival of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II as a writing team and theatrical force.
The show wasn’t expected to be a hit. “No gags, no girls, no chance,” was the infamous response of a critic who saw “Oklahoma!” in out-of-town previews. Musicals at the time were expected to exhibit a certain degree of glitz that this one lacked. Through the magic of Rodgers’s music and Hammerstein’s words, however, “Oklahoma!” made audiences—and critics—forget all that. It ran for an unprecedented five-plus years.
(Photo by Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
“Rodgers and Hammerstein,” as the team quickly became known, went on to define the span of the Golden Age they initiated, which for most commentators ends with Hammerstein’s death in 1960. These years, 1943–1960, were the era of the “book musical,” the blending of musical, lyrical, dramatic, and choreographic elements into a seamless whole, each contributing to the tone and meaning of the story. That may seem old-fashioned in a time of jukebox musicals and pop star tributes, but in the 1940s it was the leading edge of innovation.
Debuting at New York’s Niblo’s Garden in 1866, “Black Crook” was a hodgepodge of song, dance, and story that set the stage for the first American musical. (Public domain)
The Birth of the Musical
The American musical began as a hodgepodge of song, dance, and dialogue loosely strung together to tell a story—or sometimes not. The first example is said to be “The Black Crook,” an 1866 grab-bag of tunes and jokes linked to a thin plot. Over the ensuing decades, the American musical painstakingly crawled its way toward the integration of music, dance, and story line into a sophisticated whole. Two giant steps in that direction were “Showboat” (1927) and “Pal Joey” (1940). Hammerstein wrote the dialogue and lyrics for “Showboat” while Rodgers was the composer of “Pal Joey.”
Original Playbill cover for the 1949 production of “South Pacific,” starring Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza. (Public domain)
Prior to 1942, Rodgers had been working with lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart on musicals that slowly advanced the notion of an integrated whole, culminating in “Pal Joey.” But Hart was plagued with personal problems, drank heavily, and was increasingly difficult to work with. Rodgers, intent on turning a little comedy called “Green Grow the Lilacs” into a musical, knew Hart wasn’t up to it. He asked Hammerstein, whose work on “Showboat” he admired, and Hammerstein said yes.
It was a match made in theatrical heaven. Rodgers, tired of the urban style he used with Hart, turned to a more broadly lyrical, operetta-like musical language flecked with American folk elements. Hammerstein’s poetic lyrics matched this and evoked atmosphere, character, and sensibility in a way no popular lyrics of the time did. He could dream into the hearts of a young couple and find them fantasizing about a “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” or imagine the plaint of an outcast (Judd) in his “Lonely Room.”
BLACK CROOK’s plot involved a fairy queen, and evil count, treasure and a lovely village girl. More importantly, the play integrated music, dance, and spoken lines in a new format similar to that of the modern musical comedy. Poster for an 1882 production. (Public domain)
American Stories Told Through American Music
“Oklahoma!” and the three remaining Rodgers and Hammerstein shows of the 1940s concern American characters. “Carousel” (1945) finds us in New England, witnessing the tragic yet transcendental romance of Billy Bigelow and Julie Jordan. “Allegro” (1947), the only box-office failure of the four, traces the life of an American doctor. “South Pacific” (1949) considers the lives of American servicemen and women in World War II.
Mary Martin with children in mountain landscape. Martin played the leading role, Maria, in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music. (Toni Frissell)
In the 1950s, however, the musicals moved beyond American shores. The two biggest Rodgers and Hammerstein hits of that decade focus on an English lady tutor in 19th-century Siam (“The King and I,” 1951) and a singing Austrian family fleeing the Nazis (“The Sound of Music,” 1959). Their only ’50s box office success set in America was “Flower Drum Song” (1958), considered “minor” Rodgers and Hammerstein. Their TV musical “Cinderella” (1957) used European fairy tale material.
The fading of the book musical is not surprising, given the nature of contemporary song. Traditional popular song, the framework for Rodgers’s music, was harmony-based, whereas current pop is largely beat-based and harmonically much narrower than the earlier type. Harmony was central to creating the appropriate musical language for a book show.
Original poster for Flower Drum Song.
Creating a Musical Universe
All the songs in “Carousel” have a certain melodic gesture in them. This gesture, based on a specific interval between notes (the augmented fourth) generates shared harmonies among the various songs. That’s why numbers as rhythmically distinct as “If I Loved You” and “June Is Busting Out All Over” belong to the same universe: Their harmonic structures are related. But one song is an exception: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” That’s the hymn Carrie sings to comfort Julie when Billy dies, and the reason it feels transcendent, separate from the others, is that it is harmonically unique. Rodgers and the other composers of the Golden Age didn’t just make up tunes willy-nilly. A deep craftsmanship informed their art.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s catalogue is today a frequent target of critics who bandy about words like “conventional” and “bourgeois” as if the values represented by them are automatically to be dismissed as out of date. But the clock, as G.K. Chesterton once observed, is a human invention, and humans may set it back any time they wish. Perhaps it’s time to dial our musical theater clocks back to the era of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Studio portrait of American actor John Wayne wearing his signature cowboy hat and neckerchief, circa 1955. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Rarely is a man remembered for who he was when he was so overshadowed by what he did. In the case of John Wayne, however, who he was and what he did were one and the same.
John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907, in the very small Iowa town of Winterset, became one of the, if not the, most iconic actors of the 20th century. At 13 pounds, he was born to become a large man, destined for grand entrances and memorable exits. He was the eldest child of the Morrisons, a marriage that was etched with struggles, insults, and uncertainties. The family was poor and moved a lot, eventually landing in California in 1914.
Out in the farmlands and small towns of his upbringing, he learned how to handle guns, having to protect his father from rattlesnakes while working untamed land. He learned to ride horses. He perfected his reading as he went through the Sears catalogs cover to cover, noting each item he wished he could afford. He learned the idea of hard work, even when it wasn’t profitable, something his father consistently experienced and was reminded of just as often by his mother. He honored both his parents, but he loved his father.
Studio portrait of American actor John Wayne wearing his signature cowboy hat and neckerchief, circa 1955. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Wayne grew up strong and tall, suitable for an athletic career. His athleticism landed him a football scholarship to the University of Southern California in the fall of 1925. While attending school, he worked on movie sets as a prop man and was at times a film extra, typically a football player. During this time, he met the already famous and successful film director John Ford. While bodysurfing on the California coast, Wayne injured his shoulder and lost his scholarship. His football playing days were over, but he was still tall, dark, and handsome, and he decided to join the “swing gang” at Fox Film Corporation moving props.
His relationship with Ford blossomed. The two were opposite in nearly every way, but they attracted, as opposites sometimes do. Ford and Wayne developed a kind of father-son relationship, as Wayne would often call Ford “Coach” and “Pappy.” Ford would be credited with giving Wayne his big break—twice.
A Break and a Name
Ford introduced the young actor to director Raoul Walsh, who decided to have him star in his 1930 epic Western “The Big Trail.” The film was a flop at the box office, though in defense of the film, the Great Depression had just begun. During the filming, however, the studio executives decided that “Marion” was not much of a name for a leading man. Anthony Wayne, after the Revolutionary War general, was considered. Anthony didn’t work either. One of the executives suggested John. When the film was released, his new name was on the posters. Much like his nickname “Duke” was given him by local firemen, his new name, bestowed upon him by others, stuck throughout his life.
A new name and a starring role, however, would hardly change his film career. Throughout the 1930s, Wayne was relegated to B Westerns. As he ascended from his 20s into his 30s, he used his time wisely to perfect his on-screen persona―a persona that he assimilated off-screen as well. His choice of wardrobe, his walk, his fighting style were all tailored for himself by himself. The Duke was an icon in the making, and the making was all his creation. He just needed a true opportunity to showcase it.
American actor John Wayne as a young boy, sitting against a fence on the prairies with his younger brother Robert. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
A Memorable Entrance
That opportunity arrived in 1939 when Ford chose Wayne to star in his Western film “Stagecoach.” The director had always been a believer in Wayne. The young actor had proven to be a hard worker, receptive to directorial guidance, and willing to do many of his own stunts. Along with that, he was 6 feet, 3 inches tall, with a broad-shouldered frame, blue eyes that showed gray on the silver screen, and a strong nose and jawline. His acting also came across honest, as if he was speaking directly to the person in the audience. There was a magnetic pull with Wayne, and Ford decided to do all he could in his film to draw viewers to him.
Wayne was a familiar name and face for moviegoers, having already appeared in 80 films by this time. Familiar, yes. A star, no.
The 1939 film revolves around seven passengers trying to get from one town to the next while trying to avoid the inevitable Indian attack. Nearly 85 years removed, “Stagecoach” remains one of the great Westerns. The movie did more than tell a great story. It did something more important. It introduced the world to John Wayne. Eighteen minutes go by before Wayne makes his entrance in the film, and it is an entrance that was created specifically for the induction of a soon-to-be American icon.
In a wide shot, the stagecoach rides up a slight incline when suddenly there is a gunshot. The stagecoach comes to an abrupt halt. Starting with what is known as a cowboy shot (pioneered by Ford and also known as the American shot), the camera moves in for a close-up of Wayne, who twirls his Winchester rifle. The shot starts in focus, slightly goes out of focus as it moves toward the actor, and then finishes in focus. The actor stands majestically wearing a cowboy hat and neckerchief, which would soon become synonymous with Wayne. The shot was out of place not just for the film, but also for Ford. But it was intentional for reasons explained by Scott Eyman in his biography “John Wayne: The Life and Legend.”
“This is less an expertly choreographed entrance for an actor than it is the annunciation of a star.”
“Stagecoach” was Wayne’s big break into the Hollywood movies, making him one of America’s leading actors and soon to become a star. Theatrical poster for the 1939 American release of “Stagecoach.” ( Public domain)
America’s Leading Man
From this point on, Wayne would embrace his role as America’s leading man. There were other actors, of course, during his rise. Some on the decline, like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper. Some on the rise, like Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. Their greatness in their own ways cannot be diminished. Gable with his force of nature persona. Cooper as an embodiment of honesty and kindness. Grant as the romantic symbol of the 20th century. And Stewart, a personified symbol of truth. But Wayne embodied something else, and yet he was all of these things. He became the face of the country.
Authors Randy Roberts and James Olson both noted that Wayne became America’s “alter-ego.” Wayne hoisted that alter-ego upon his cinematic shoulders, which proved more than capable of bearing the load. The Duke chose films that promoted and often propagandized America’s greatness. His primary film genres were war films and Westerns.
When America entered World War II after the Pearl Harbor attack, Wayne was closing in on 35 years of age and already had four children. Film stars, like Stewart and Gable, along with directors, like Ford, joined the war effort overseas. In 1943, Wayne applied to join the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, but the spots were filled. In 1944, when there was a fear of a shortage of men, Wayne’s status was changed to 1A (draft eligible), but Republic Pictures filed for a 3A deferment for Wayne, which kept him in front of the camera. Ultimately, Wayne believed, arguably correctly, that his impact as an actor (or more cynically a propagandist) would be far greater than as a soldier.
“I felt it would be a waste of time to spend two years picking up cigarette butts. I thought I could do more for the war effort by staying in Hollywood,” he told John Ford’s son, Dan.
Cinematographer Bert Glennon (L) and director John Ford on the set of “Stagecoach” in 1939. (Public domain)
For all intents and purposes, Wayne, who would have been classified as a private, would have most likely remained behind the scenes doing busy work or promotional bits for the military. Though he would never be a military hero, Wayne proved more than patriotic. As Eyman wrote regarding the type of roles Wayne chose to perform, “His characters’ taste for the fulfillment of an American imperative was usually based on patriotic conviction, rarely for economic opportunity.”
Between the span of America’s entry into the war and the end of its occupation in Japan (1952), Wayne starred in eight World War II films. He would also join the United Service Organizations (USO) overseas, where he entertained the troops and helped boost morale.
A Conservative Stalwart
Throughout his career as America’s leading man, he never shied away from making his conservative views known, and he never wavered from opposing liberal viewpoints. He and Paul Newman, a known Hollywood liberal, regularly talked politics and shared books with each other that discussed their differing political perspectives. Wayne’s 1974 visit to Harvard University, to possibly be disparaged by the student body, resulted in both sides walking away with mutual respect.
Wayne knew what was to be expected, especially with the anti-war movement on campuses. He took verbal barbs and responded in his typical fun-loving yet pointed manner. At one point, he told the young audience: “Good thing you weren’t here 200 years ago or the tea would’ve never made the harbor.” The comment was greeted with cheers rather than boos.
As the New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick wrote, concerning the outcome of the Harvard visit, “There were many who found themselves actually—and incredibly—liking John Wayne. They still disliked his politics, of course, but was he any different from many of their parents?”
Wayne reads a “Prince Valiant” comic with his four children, 1942. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/ Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Eyman pointed out the actor’s quasi-familial influence on the American homeland. Wayne’s growth on-screen and off-screen proved to be near equal in its cultural weight. He reminded “people of their brother or son, he gradually assumed a role as everyone’s father, then, inevitably, as age and weight congealed, everyone’s grandfather.”
On June 11, 1979, America’s grandfather passed away from stomach cancer. He had beaten cancer once before, and it had cost him a lung and some ribs. His final film, “The Shootist,” is about an old gunfighter dying of cancer. Though he had another film lined up, his death after his final film is, still tragically, more fitting than ironic.
Wayne was America’s cowboy. He was the war effort on film. He worked to root out communists in Hollywood. He was a man who believed in patriotism when many Americans tried to give that a bad name. John Wayne was, and, according to polls, still is, part of the American family. When Wayne was being considered for the Congressional Gold Medal in May 1979, the stars came out in support. Elizabeth Taylor told Congress, “He has given much to America. And he has given to the whole world what an American is supposed to be like.”
He was awarded the medal a month after his passing. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Of all the attributes one could give John Wayne, the one recommended to Congress by his five-time co-star Maureen O’Hara seems to be the most appropriate.
“I feel the medal should say just one thing,” O’Hara tearfully said. “John Wayne: American.”
Wayne stars as Robert Marmaduke Hightower in the 1948 western “3 Godfathers.” (Hulton Archive/Stringer/ Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Pat Boone in his sunny West Hollywood office. (John Fredricks)
“I once shook hands with Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up,” the actor and singer Dean Martin once said.
Call it the “Pat Boone Effect.”
Example: In 1997, hard rock and heavy metal were at their peak. Their sound was the epitome of doom, their lyrics the essence of defeat. Enter an artist from the ’50s and early ’60s, with 38 Top 40 hits to his credit, a singer known for tuneful songs, sung in the smoothest possible way—the very antithesis of hard rock/heavy metal—Pat Boone.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
The album, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy,” featured Boone’s crooner vocal stylings against a lush background of big band saxophones and brass sections. A complete deconstruction of the hard rock/metal genre, “In a Metal Mood” uncovered surprising melodic richness in such unlikely sources as Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, Alice Cooper, and Deep Purple. Boone’s version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” married the song’s opening guitar riff to a salvo of trumpets, while Boone’s heartfelt delivery gave new life to the dismal lyrics.
Heavy metal didn’t have a chance against the “Pat Boone Effect” and its founding creed: Everything, even the onset of the darkest conditions, can be resisted and tamed. The “Pat Boone Effect” continues today, as its namesake writes books, makes movies, and finds new songs to sing at the age of 88.
Boone (C) with “American Bandstand” host Dick Clark (L) and pianist Jerry Lee Lewis. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)
An Icon of the ’50s
Pat Boone was long ago a name to speak in the same breath as Elvis Presley. In the ’50s, the two of them vied for the top of the pop charts, with Boone often winning. A writer for Time Magazine extolled the young phenom dressed in white shoes in a 1956 article: “Pat Boone, 22, was just another hillbilly singer from Nashville 18 months ago. Today, nobody who hears him in person ever hears the first or last few robust notes—they are always drowned in squeals of bobby-sox delight.” In addition to recording those 38 Top 40 hits between 1955 and 1963 (13 of them gold singles), Boone acted in more than a dozen movies, including “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and the 1962 remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “State Fair.”
Along the way, he exemplified a pristine image of restraint and hard work. In a lecture to young people, Boone once warned that “kissing for fun is like lighting a lovely candle in a room full of dynamite.” Unwilling to exploit what he assumed was temporary fame, Boone got his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University in 1958, the same year his biggest single hit, “Love Letters in the Sand,” came out, with the intent of becoming a teacher. But fame persisted, allowing him to marry his sweetheart, Shirley, who would be his wife for more than 60 years until her passing in 2020.
And then—the world stopped turning and commenced to spin in the opposite direction. In 1964, the year Boone turned 30, the British invasion brought the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to American shores, and in their wake, a striking change in the cultural weather.
Boone, Elvis Presley (C), and friends meet up while filming at the 20th Century Fox Studios for their movies “All Hands on Deck” and “Wild in the Country,” circa 1960. (Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“Drugs and promiscuous sex,” Boone answers immediately to the question, “What prompted the cultural changes of the mid- to late ’60s?” Whatever it was, the change meant that Boone’s milk-and-cookies image suddenly became yesterday’s newspapers. So he moved on, never changing his beliefs nor his singing style, and never judging the new wave (he called Alice Cooper and John Lennon friends), but persisting. He continued to perform and record, finding an audience just outside the one that surfed the mainstream, while tilting occasionally against contemporary culture in a semi-humorous mode that kept one second-guessing: Was he serious about those metal covers, or was that an elaborate joke to expose the thinness of the material? Boone never quite gave a straight answer.
Grounded in Faith
Boone’s latest enterprises, “If: The Eternal Choice We All Must Make,” a book-length essay on his lifelong spiritual beliefs, and “The Mulligan,” a faith-based movie that follows up on his recent acting appearances in other faith-based movies, confirm his dedication to the same values that first made him famous.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“The word ‘if’ is of utmost importance. ‘If’ you believe. ‘If’ you choose. ‘If’ you act,” Boone said of his book’s theme. The book guides the reader in navigating choices that Boone insists “are not religious, but matters of life and death.” He said he felt compelled to write it. “I even designed the cover, which looks like the burned edges of a piece of paper, with the single word ‘if’ in the middle,” he added, to convey the feeling of urgency. The choices as answered in the book lead the reader to the Christian faith that Boone has held from childhood.
“The Mulligan” likewise explores his faith, from the standpoint of second chances: “A ‘mulligan’ in golf is a second chance, so why not a second chance in life to correct the mistakes we all make? It’s a gospel theme with a secular plot, set on a gorgeous golf course.” The film was released in select theaters in April 2022.
(John Fredricks)
Boone’s faith has led him to feel an urgent need to bring Christianity and Judaism together. “One of the biggest mistakes ever made was dividing the Bible into Old and New Testaments. It’s a single testament. One part needs the other.”
Boone’s regard for Judaism and his empathy for Israel once led to an especially demanding challenge. On Christmas Eve, 1960, Boone sat listening to the musical theme to “Exodus,” a film based on Leon Uris’s novel about the founding of the modern state of Israel. It wasn’t just for pleasure. The piece was wildly popular due to an instrumental version by the piano duo Ferrante and Teicher, but it had no lyrics, and without them its significance as a paean to Israel’s founding was blunted.
Several lyricists had tried and failed to fit meaningful words to composer Ernest Gold’s soaring melody. Now, the task was given to a popular singer with deeply Christian beliefs. Could he do it? Boone wasn’t even principally a songwriter. His biggest hits were written by other people: “April Love” was penned by a professional songwriting team for the 1957 movie of the same name; “Ain’t That a Shame” was a Fats Domino cover; and Boone’s biggest hit of all, “Love Letters in the Sand,” was a neglected ballad from 1931.
(Courtesy of Pat Boone)
“I sat listening to the music over and over and I told Shirl”—his nickname for his wife—“nothing was coming to mind. Then I just heard the first four words: ‘This land is mine.’ I grabbed a Christmas card on a nearby table and started to write.”
Finding the first four words opened up the floodgates of creativity. “God gave this land to me,” and the rest of the lyrics, crowded onto the back of the Christmas card.
(John Fredricks)
“It’s like a second national anthem in Israel,” Boone said. “The director of Yad Vashem,” which is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, “asked if I would will the original manuscript of the lyrics to them. I said, ‘You can have it now, but it’s on the back of a Christmas card.’ They were fine with that.”
A superstar in his 20s, and a persistent figure in entertainment ever since, Pat Boone goes on believing that the bad in the world can be, must be, overcome. The Pat Boone Effect could do the world a world of good.
On August 21, 2010, Chad Robichaux stood in the middle of the Toyota Center before thousands of cheering fans. He had just finished a fight for Strikeforce, the second-largest mixed martial arts (MMA) organization at the time. The three judges submitted their scorecards. It was a split decision. After the third scorecard was read, he was still undefeated at 13–0.
From the outside looking in, Chad Robichaux seemed to have the world on a string. This moment in the octagon seemed the emblematic story of his life: enduring a hardscrabble childhood, joining the Marines and quickly rising to its special unit Force Recon, starting his own highly successful MMA gym, and now marching through his competitors one-by-one. But that was on the outside. That was the man on paper. It was not, however, the man himself.
Since World War II, the Robichaux family has given 84 years of service to the American military. His family has bled patriotism since before he was born, but the family has bled in other ways too.
“When my father came home from Vietnam, he was a train wreck and was until the day he died,” Robichaux said. “He was a very angry guy. A very violent guy. But the one thing that made him light up and made him proud was the fact that he was a United States Marine.”
Robichaux and his brother, who are a year apart, decided as teenagers to become Marines. They devoured books about 3rd and 4th Recon Companies and Special Forces in Vietnam. Robichaux said the very idea of becoming Marines helped them escape the dysfunction of their childhood.
But just one year into their decision, his brother was killed after an argument with their stepbrother. Though it was never discovered if the killing was accidental or intentional, it was ultimately the tragic product of a dysfunctional family. The tragedy drove his mother to pursue psychiatric help, though she would never recover. His father left to work overseas. At 15, Robichaux moved in with his older sister.
Robichaux with his commanding officer from USMC School of Infantry–West. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
The death of his brother hardened his resolve to become a Marine. As a high school athlete, he did his best to maintain his strength and conditioning, not for sports, but for his future in the military. He worked long hours while attending school. Pragmatically, though, he knew he was never going to graduate. At 17, he pleaded with his Marine recruiter to let him join the Marines earlier than usual. The recruiter eventually complied and helped Robichaux write a letter to the U.S. Marine Corps explaining his circumstances, with Robichaux pledging his loyalty to service, and also to get a GED, which he did. He would later attain a master’s degree in business. “I’m very fortunate looking back that I had that opportunity, took advantage of it, and made the best of my situation,” he said.
That situation took a turn on September 11, 2001. He had already been in the Marines for eight years and was a sergeant in the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. He was also married with children. “When I saw those planes fly into those buildings I knew my life was about to be different,” he recalled. “I wanted to go and serve. I wanted to go and make that wrong right for our country and for our national security.”
Over the course of four years, he would be deployed eight times to Afghanistan as part of the elite Joint Special Operations Command. Robichaux would find himself constantly in the heart of combat. He would witness not just the death of comrades and enemy soldiers, but the evil and cruelty of his enemies who relentlessly tortured and killed innocent civilians. He and his fellow soldiers would be tried by fire in the heat of battle and emerge closer and stronger together. The vulnerability of friendship in battle, however, would lead to emotional devastation, as he buried 15 friends, including his best friend of 10 years. “It’s hard for that not to shape you,” he said. “Either you grow from it or it crushes you. I think ultimately I grew from it. But in the interim, it crushed me.”
The Crushing
The crushing began with feelings of anger and frustration, but those emotional issues went unaddressed and soon developed into physiological symptoms of anxiety and stress. One of the physical symptoms Robichaux experienced was numbness. His arms would go numb. His face would go numb. He would experience severe panic attacks where he would feel like he was on the verge of asphyxiation.
Graduates of the Mighty Oak Foundation’s program are presented with rudis swords. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He remained silent about his symptoms. He feared his peers would consider him weak and that if he admitted himself into the military’s mental health resources, it would compromise his security clearance and ultimately remove him from special forces. While he struggled with the ever-worsening symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), tragedy struck when one of his teams was captured by the Taliban and killed. His shelter in Afghanistan was later blown up by a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) by the same Taliban members. “I kept trying to operate in that environment, but ultimately I had to speak up,” he said. “I was brought home, just as I feared, diagnosed with PTSD and removed from my job.”
He was given medicine to treat his symptoms, but he said the medicine turned him into a “zombie.” He added that he also felt immensely embarrassed and ashamed to have been removed from his duties.
Success at a Cost
His wife Kathy and his counselor advised him to get into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He began competing in the martial art and turned professional. He rose through the MMA ranks and won a world title, ultimately ranking 19th in the world for flyweight and 11th for bantamweight. His success and popularity led him to open a Brazilian jiu-jitsu academy that quickly blossomed to 1,000 students. “When I got on those mats, it took my mind off of Afghanistan and those bad memories,” he said. “I took something that could be good for me and I dove into it. I was successful at it, but in that success, I never got well.”
Robichaux said he still suffered from severe panic attacks and continued to struggle with the medicine prescribed by the Veterans Affairs system. His marriage quickly fell apart after an affair. “I was a completely toxic human being to my wife and kids,” he said.
Chad Robichaux successfully fought his inner demons with the support of his wife, Kathy. Here, the couple is photographed in Temecula, Calif. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
He and Kathy sold their house, and he moved into an apartment. While he turned to partying and competing in martial arts as means to cope with his PTSD, Kathy began attending a local church. “She began praying, ‘God, let me see Chad the way You see Chad. Let me love Chad the way You love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way You forgave Chad,” he said. “She was fighting for me spiritually.”
It was during this time that Robichaux won the Strikeforce fight at Toyota Center. When he returned home that night, he lay in bed contemplating his life. While the world viewed him as an unquestionable success, he knew the world was wrong. “This thought came over me that of all the people I had blamed for everything, I was the problem. I was the common denominator,” he remembered. “My family was so devastated and I thought that if I wasn’t in their lives, it would be better for them. Maybe they would be sad without me, but they would be better off.”
For several weeks, Robichaux began contemplating suicide, at times sitting in his closet holding a Glock in one hand and a family photo in the other. In one of those darkest moments, Kathy knocked on his door.
“I remember I was so mad that she had interrupted me killing myself—which sounds twisted—that I started yelling at her,” he said. “She’s not a very calm arguer, but in this moment she was, and she asked me a question that became this axis point in my life. She asked me ‘How can you do all of this—recon, MMA schools, training for fights, deployments—and when it comes to your family, you’ll quit.’ And she was right.”
Her words cut and echoed in Robichaux’s mind. To be called a quitter and to know it was true was enough to create a mind-shift, and he decided in that moment to work toward putting his life back together. He began formulating a plan. He had been living a life without accountability. The people who had been in his corner had only been telling him what he wanted to hear, not what he needed to hear.
The Path to Change
He asked Kathy if she knew anyone whom he might talk to about his plan and whom he could be accountable to. She mentioned a man from her church by the name of Steve Toth. He wasn’t a veteran or into MMA. But he was outside of Robichaux’s circle, and he was a brutally up-front person. When Robichaux slid a piece of paper over to him that outlined his plan to change his life, Toth didn’t even look at it. He simply slid it back over to him and told him he would fail if God was not in the plan. God was not. “There is probably nothing more powerful that I could have heard in that moment because I knew deep down inside I had tried everything,” he said.
Robichaux gives an interview on the Situation Report podcast. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
Robichaux said that for the next year, Toth discipled him, which is a Christian method of mentoring through accountability, biblical study, and prayer. He gave his life to spirituality and began healing the wounds he had suffered and those he had inflicted. He and his family reunited, and by one year’s end, he and Kathy had formed a nonprofit called Mighty Oaks Foundation to help veterans who struggle with many of the same issues he did. The foundation is based on Robichaux’s personal experience with what works in the healing process.
“I don’t think God did those things to me,” he said. “But He has the ability to protect me from those things, so why wouldn’t He? I think the answer is that He trusts at times with these situations. He trusted what I would do with this. And I’ve taken the hardships in my life to not just help me, but to help others.”
Since the organization was launched 12 years ago, Robichaux has spoken to nearly half a million active duty troops. He is only one of two speakers to speak at the Marine Corps boot camps. He has authored and co-authored eight books, the latest one about the rescue mission to save his interpreter in Afghanistan after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal. He has donated approximately 350,000 copies of his books to troops. He has spoken before Congress numerous times in support of faith-based approaches to dealing with PTSD. His foundation has established five ranch facilities around the country to help veterans suffering from PTSD. Approximately 4,500 have graduated from the program, including active duty military, veterans, first responders, and their spouses. These programs are conducted free of charge, with the number of graduates steadily increasing to about 1,000 per year. Mighty Oaks is now spreading its programs throughout the world with military allies.
A Proven Method
Robichaux and his team developed a method for helping veterans recover and heal, based on what is known in the military as “the four pillars of resilience.” Mighty Oaks Foundation focuses on a veteran’s mental, physical, social, and spiritual needs.
Robichaux speaks to students at a convocation for Liberty University in Virginia. (Courtesy of Chad Robichaux)
“I believe we are created to be holistic human beings. We cover at Mighty Oaks the spiritual side, but I don’t think that is all you need,” he said. “If you were only dealing with the spiritual side, you would have an imbalance. When I’m speaking to the troops, I point to their chairs and tell them that those four legs represent each of those pillars of resilience. If that chair has a weak leg it could probably remain standing, but the moment you sit on it, you’ll go crashing down. I think that’s our life. On the surface, we look like we have all four of those pillars, but if one of them is weak, as soon as the weight of life comes on it, we’ll come crashing down.”
Robichaux noted that it was his spiritual pillar that was weakest for him. He said it left a giant hole inside of him that he filled with hate, rage, anger, and bitterness, which allowed room for anxiety, depression, guilt, and hopelessness to engulf him. Robichaux’s rise from what he calls “a darkness” has enabled him to do what he has done for so long: serve. In a way, he still serves his country by serving his fellow countrymen, specifically those in the military.
“I don’t think I get the platform because of the successes I’ve had,” he said. “I think the platform I have is because I’ve been at the high and at the very low and I have felt the need to be honest about that.” He regrets that he didn’t have someone to show him how to be vulnerable when he was struggling. “I wish someone would have been that honest with me about their hardships and struggles because I know that would have helped me. I’m thankful I was allowed to endure those low points because it gives me an opportunity to speak to others.”
Mules are intuitive animals that can communicate with their human companions through nonverbal cues, Eyer said. (Natalie Rhea)
Out in the roughly 112 million acres of land that are designated as “wilderness areas” by the federal Wilderness Act of 1964, no motorized vehicles or “mechanical transport” are allowed to operate—not even a wheelbarrow. That’s where mule packer Chris Eyer comes in. Together with his pack of 10 to 15 hardworking animals, he helps to transport supplies for the U.S. Forest Service and outdoor guides who bring people out on wilderness trips. It was a lifelong dream: When he was about 14, he went on a mountaineering school trip to the Sierras in California, and he spotted a man with a pack of mules. That moment was seared into his mind and sparked a desire to one day embrace the Wild West archetype.
Along the way, Eyer served in the Marine Corps during the first Gulf War (“I had a strong sense of garden variety patriotism and a real love for freedom”), went to university, started an electrical contracting company, and began crafting saddles. The mule packing is mostly a volunteering endeavor born out of the love for the outdoors. He lives in a pocket of wilderness in Ovando, Montana, nestled in the northern Rocky Mountains, known as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex (“I live in a spot where I can ride out my front door and go all the way to Canada”). Today, he sits on the board of directors for a foundation that maintains the wilderness complex and runs programs that bring people to explore the area.
Eyer’s great-grandfather had a homestead in the same area of Montana wilderness that he now explores. (Lianna Spooner)
Eyer spoke to American Essence about what mule packing entails and the deeper meaning behind connecting with nature.
This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
American Essence: What is a typical day like for you?
Chris Eyer: I would wake up at 5 a.m. I would have all of my loads already made. So everything would be all put together and wrapped up in what we call manties [tarps]. I make coffee and start to wrangle all my stocks, get them loaded up into the trailer, and I’d head to the trailhead. I drive up there, unload, and then I go through a process of brushing everyone, making sure everyone is sound and looking good, put pads on them, saddle them all, get them all ready to go. I take these heavy loads, which are usually about 75 to 90 pounds per side, so anywhere from 150 to 180 pounds per animal, which for them is really not heavy. We always keep it to less than 20 percent of their body weight. If everything goes really smoothly, I’ll be on the trail by 9 a.m. A typical day for me would be riding anywhere from 18 to 25 miles, at which point I would stop and drop all the loads. And then I would take all the saddles off. Then I would start the process of turning my stock loose for the night, so that they can graze and water all night unimpeded. I’m normally in bed asleep by 8:15. And then I wake up in the morning and do it all again, whether I come out empty or move heavy things to the next destination.
American Essence: Why do you do what you do?
Mr. Eyer: For most people who take part in this wilderness area, they’re highly transformative [experiences]. Facilitating that is something I’m really interested in. Being back in a place where you are no longer on the top of the food chain, you’re traveling through areas full of grizzly bears and wolves and all sorts of different hazards—that’s actually an experience that’s more accurate to who we are as humans. Staying warm, staying hydrated, being fed, doing some work—that’s actually a very root experience for humanity. And I think it’s something that in this world we currently live in, where we’re just absolutely laden with technology, and we have all this information at our fingertips—to be able to come off the top of the food chain, to be able to go into our public lands, that’s just a really important salve for the postmodern mind. It’s allowing yourself to take part in the moment-to-moment change that’s happening around you, and not in a way that’s resisting it.
Chris Eyer and his pack of mules travel through the Danaher Meadows in the Bob Marshall Wilderness region. (Lindsey Mulcare)
American Essence: What are the dramatic transformations you’ve seen in people?
Mr. Eyer: When you can watch people, especially people who are newer to the wilderness, develop a new relationship with themselves, and in particular, develop a new relationship with what it means to be afraid. We all have certain kinds of fears and anxieties: It might be about your job. It might be about your children, your future, your past, whatever it may be. But when you get down to the root of that emotion—which is easier to do when you are in the wilderness—you realize that all these different fears that you experience on a day-to-day basis are actually masks.
When you really are able to let go, you see yourself nested in a system, an ecosystem of relationships of which you are a part. In other words, you’re not back there dominating, or taking control of the wilderness, you’re actually taking part in the wilderness. You’ll begin to see that if it’s true that you are nested in a web of relationships, that to act any other way but compassionately towards all of the life that we’re surrounded by—would just be to act self-destructively.
Many people return [home] and talk about how they engage with work differently, they engage with their family differently, they see things for what’s really important: sustenance, but also community, connection, and being able to rely on individuals in the communities we’re involved in, wherever that might be.
(Elias Carlson)
American Essence: What’s the most hairy situation you’ve been in while mule packing?
Mr. Eyer: I can remember a pack trip I went on where I was leaving camp, it was in October, and there was a light snow. And earlier that morning, we’d seen one of the largest grizzly bears I’ve ever seen, he skirted the boundaries of our camp. And then a couple hours later, when we were leaving, he popped out of these willow bushes and spooked the whole pack string, and the whole pack string took off at a full gallop. I ended up holding my horse, but off of him, about 10 to 15 feet away from this giant grizzly bear, face to face. Thankfully, he wandered into camp, and was interested in exploring whether or not we’ve left any food behind and was not interested in attacking me. There’s just countless stories like that.
Dino Laudati, master
haircolorist, pictured
at his salon’s rooftop
in West Palm Beach,
Fla. (Pia Norris)
I am an immigrant. I grew up in poverty in post-World War II Italy. We had dirt floors and no running water or bathroom in the house, and we never knew where the next meal was coming from or what it would be. From the time I was 7, I worked at a gas station. I thank God that America gave me a chance to escape that life.
I came to America with my family when I was 16. I was upset about leaving my friends behind, but I had no choice. We lived in Springfield, Massachusetts: not a place I would have chosen, but much better than the place I left behind.
During my first month in Springfield, we experienced one of the worst snowstorms I had ever seen. While walking down the street on that Sunday, I noticed all the people—young and old—shoveling their driveways. Since I didn’t yet speak any English, I asked my friend to talk to the older people and find out if they would like us to shovel the snow for a couple of dollars. In 1968, $2 seemed like a lot of money. By the end of the day, when we stopped and counted all the money we had stuffed into various pockets, we discovered that we had made almost $30 apiece.
It was on that snowy Sunday that I became an American. In one short day in America, I made more than double what my father earned in a month doing construction seven days a week, 10 hours a day, in Italy.
Since that day, I did many jobs, both part-time and full-time, day or night. My father expected me to work a 40-hour-a-week job to help support the family: That meant I had to go to school during the day and work an eight-hour shift at night, usually from 10 o’clock to 6 o’clock in the morning. I worked in a match factory, a rubber boot factory, as a dishwasher, a janitor, and a hospital orderly. I did construction, framed paintings in an art gallery, and even sold vacuum cleaners from door to door. I was never out of work because America always offered an opportunity. Many times it was not what I wanted, but I did it anyway until something better came along.
Fortunately, I went to a trade high school where I took classes in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and auto mechanics. When my sister took cosmetology, I thought it would be interesting to join her—especially since I would be the only man surrounded by pretty girls. Even though my sister withdrew, I enjoyed it and the instructor took a special interest in me: I seemed to possess a natural talent. When I graduated, I received the cosmetology award and an award in English. I knew that I could embrace not just a job, but a career that offered unlimited opportunities. With a pair of scissors and a comb, I could go anywhere!
With five years’ experience as a hairstylist, I married my wife, and the next morning, we drove to Palm Beach, Florida. Two years later, at the age of 26, we opened our own salon. A few years later, we had the hottest and busiest salon in Palm Beach. We also had two sons.
I took to my knees and thanked God for my wife, my sons, and for the success of our salon. But most of all, I thanked him for America. These are some of the words I prayed:
Lord, thank you for giving me America as an adoptive mother, and please bless my new mother. She took me in her arms, accepted me as her own, and offered me the same dreams, the same freedom, and the same opportunities she offered her native sons, with no limits, no questions, and no discrimination. God bless America!
(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Quietly nestled along the Narraganset Bay, the Marble House was the first of the stone palaces to be built in Newport—transforming the quiet colony of wooden houses into a bastion of opulence. It would be called a “cottage,” in deference to the earlier shingle style summer residences. But in truth, this was a grand home “fit for a Queen.”
A French Affinity
Alva Erskine Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama, on January 17, 1853. She and her parents would spend summers in Newport, Rhode Island. During the Civil War, her family moved to Europe, and she attended a private boarding school in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Spending some of her formative years in the vicinity of Paris, young Alva became a Francophile (lover of all things French). She and her family eventually returned to America, living in New York. She married William Kissam Vanderbilt, a grandson of the patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr.
(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Alva had built her “Petit Château” in New York with the help of architect Richard Morris Hunt. Now she engaged his services once more to create a “summer cottage” that would emulate the fine Beaux-Arts classicism she had admired in France. It would be the first truly grand classical mansion of Newport, Rhode Island. Hunt created for Alva a grand “temple for the arts,” as she called it. The design of Marble House was inspired by the Petit Trianon in Paris, a neoclassical style château located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles. Construction began on the house in 1888. It would be a present from her husband for her 39th birthday.
In the late 19th century, the estate reportedly cost $10–11 million to build. Seven million of that was for the marble—500,000 cubic feet of it.
The Gothic Room was designed to display Alva Vanderbilt’s collection of medieval and Renaissance decorative objects. The stone fireplace in the room was copied by Allard and Sons from a fireplace in the Jacques Coeur House in Bourges, France. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
Of Marble and Gild
Alva was known as a great entertainer, and she sought to build her own social status. For that reason, Alva collaborated with Hunt to create what became recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” If ever there was a ballroom that epitomized the Gilded Age, it would have to be the ballroom at Marble House.
The Ballroom was literally gilded: The elaborate architectural details of the room, first drawn by Hunt, are all covered with gold. Elaborate cornices, pilasters, archways, and panels of bas relief illustrating classical mythology are all covered with 22 karat gold. Above the relief is a 19th-century painting, in the style of the Italian Baroque painter Pietro da Cortona, of the Greek goddess Minerva.
Jules Allard and Sons, the noted Paris design firm, created the interiors for the house. The Stair Hall and its grand staircase, constructed of yellow Sienna marble, features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. Copied from a railing in the Palace of Versailles, the railing is signed by Allard.
Inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the grand staircase in the Foyer was constructed of yellow Sienna marble and features an intricate wrought iron and bronze railing covered with gold. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)The Dining Room features pink Numidian marble, architectural details of gilded bronze on the walls and ceiling, and furniture of velvet fabric laced with metallic threads. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
The opulent Dining Room is walled in pink Numidian marble with architectural details of gilded bronze. Its fireplace is a replica of the Salon d’Hercule (Hercules Drawing Room) in Versailles. The library is in the Rococo style and features carved walnut bookcases by furniture maker Gilbert Cuel, who worked with Allard to create the room.
Alva had a collection of Medieval and Renaissance objects and artwork, for which the Gothic Room was built. In contrast to the rest of the house’s Louis XIV and Louis XV décor, this Gothic-revival sitting room is modeled after the interior of a house in Bourges, France (built between 1443 and 1451 for Jacques Coer, a prosperous merchant). The room’s chimney piece, of Caen limestone, is modeled after the one in the Bourges house. The foliate (leafy) cornice was also inspired by the gothic French interior, but in deference to Rhode Island’s seaside location, crabs and lobsters are worked into the foliage.
The private quarters upstairs, where the family lived, are finished in the style of Louis XIV. William and Alva had three children. William K. Jr. is known for promoting the young sport of automobile racing. His brother Harold was a skilled yachtsman, successfully defending the America’s Cup on three occasions. Consuelo, the daughter, became the 9th Duchess of Marlborough, marrying Charles Spencer Churchill in 1895.
The Grand Salon (also called the Gold Room) served as a ballroom and was recognized as “one of the grandest ballrooms ever to be built in Newport.” The Gold Room features gold gilt paneling over wooden walls carved to represent scenes from classical mythology, inspired by the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre. (Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)(Courtesy of The Preservation Society of Newport County)
A Stage for Suffrage
Alva divorced William in March of 1895. She already owned Marble House since William had presented it to her as a birthday present and the deed was in her name. The next year she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, and she lived with him at Belcourt (another mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt in Newport) until his death in 1908. She then returned to Marble House and added an ornate teahouse, modeled after a 12th-century Song Dynasty temple in China. It sits at the foot of the Marble House lawn, above the Cliff Walk overlooking the ocean. The design was created by the sons of Richard Morris Hunt, who by that time had taken over their father’s firm.
It was here, and on Marble House’s rear terrace, that Alva began to hold rallies for a new passion. The woman who so ardently strove to bring her family into the realm of nobility now became a champion of women’s suffrage. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Alva lived to see the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which gave women the right to vote. Her daughter Consuelo had dissolved her marriage with the British Duke and was now living in Paris. Alva moved to France to be close to her and later died in Paris at the age of 80.
The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage used Marble House as its headquarters. Picture of the National Woman’s Party at Mrs. Belmont’s house in Newport, R.I., 1914. Library of Congress. (Public domain)
Arizona Autism Charter School uses behavior therapy techniques to help children communicate their needs. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
When Diana Diaz-Harrison strolls the halls of her schools, she is reminded on a daily basis why she loves education. She has always loved kids. It’s what drew her into the education field in the first place. Her earlier self as a bilingual teacher in California could not have imagined her present self as an innovative leader in education. Today, she is the founder of a specialized public charter school system—the first of its kind: the Arizona Autism Charter School (AZACS).
AZACS is unlike the typical public school institution. It is a tuition-free charter school based on a nonprofit educational model for Arizona’s non-neurotypical students who have been diagnosed with learning differences. These children are thriving in a non-traditional classroom setting within her network of charter schools geared toward children with autism in Arizona. According to Harrison, about 25 percent of students are not autistic; however, they might have a speech delay or cerebral palsy, or they are wheelchair-bound students.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
“It is hard to convince others about the growing trend of diverse student populations,” she stated. “These students need personalized learning, therapeutic services, and a small class model. And because there are so many diverse students, they need the services of AZACS.”
Harris first established a campus in 2014 for students in grades K to 5. Today, Harrison’s schools serve 725 students online and at three campuses in central Phoenix in grades K to 12. For post-secondary education, AZACS added a transition academy to assist students between 18 and 22 years old. Here, students can earn career and tech credits (CTE) while learning essential life skills and getting vocational training. And yet, spaces are continually being added to accommodate enrollment needs.
The work of AZACS attracted national recognition with Harrison winning the Yass Prize, an award established in 2021 to honor and support innovative alternatives in education. As the winner, AZACS will receive $1 million in prize money. Dubbed an education changemaker, Harrison has committed her passions, expertise, and tenacity in ways that improve the quality of life for many neurodiverse students in Arizona. “My goal is to help change the narrative, celebrate these students for what they can contribute to society. They are not a burden. We have to find the best ways to reach them,” she said.
The school is a tuition free charter school that aims to help children with autism explore their unique gifts. Below, Harrison at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s post-secondary program focused on workforce training. (Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
Fighting for Those Like Her Son
And reach them she does. Harrison’s own son, Sammy, was diagnosed with autism when he was only 2 years old. She found it difficult to access personalized quality education at traditional public school institutions. Like many parents, she struggled to find an affordable private school that would work for her son. Soon after, Sammy had a transformative intervention through Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC), renowned for providing the best behavior therapy for autism. It was a game changer. “Sammy started verbalizing and engaging with people other than me and attended other activities in a group setting. I was excited about school, and then when all of those strategies were not available in public school, I was baffled as to why there was hesitation to implement therapies that work.”
Harrison realized what was possible and decided to do something about it: start her own school for autistic children. With an emphasis on behavior modeling, Harrison’s schools depend on a robust team of dedicated personnel and behavior analysts. “Sometimes autistic kids are defined by challenging behaviors, but they are so much more than that. There are therapies that can help them overcome. These students are so brilliant in terms of their ability to connect with others, their desire to do productive things in their community, and they love people,” Harrison said.
She explained that with a 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio, they are able to master foundational skills in reading and mathematics. Shaping behavior is also essential, such as learning how to sit in a chair, make a proper request, or raise a hand to ask for help. Identifying communication deficits or behavioral challenges using applied behavior analysis (ABA) teaches students to better understand themselves; and, according to Harrison, these techniques are drilled into children early so that they learn how to deal with self behaviors properly—which reinforces desirable behavior in the classroom. Instead of screaming in a group environment, students are given token cards that help them communicate their needs.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
“These kids need reinforcement with meaningful rewards to shape behavior. … Social emotional learning is what we do all along because kids need to feel comfortable and regulated,” Harrison said. The school’s next goal is to foster an environment for students to collaborate on projects. “They can tap into their interests to help them go into a deep dive,” she said. One such project was building a self-sustaining turtle habitat. Students researched what kind of tortoises would thrive in ideal conditions in their school environment, incorporating a variety of academic lessons. Not only is this way of learning meaningful and creative, but it’s also applicable to real-life passions on topics of interest to them.
Set Up for Success
Harrison endeavored to start a specialty school based on other schools in existence already: South Florida Autism Charter School helped her pilot the way, using a similar instructional model based on behavior therapy and a nonprofit structure. It proved successful. “It seems like we always outgrow ourselves due to need. We use a lottery process because we are the only charter in the state. We feel a huge responsibility to grow and keep up with demand and to help others start a similar school in their state,” Harrison said.
(Courtesy of Arizona Autism Charter Schools)
Her winning pitch for the national prize means additional funding to continue AZACS’s innovative mission. Middle and high school students will have greater access to project-based learning modules through Woz ED. Apple’s co-founder started the company to partner with schools around the country, with the goal of providing cutting-edge STEM curriculum. Whether it is to learn coding, understand computers, or fly drones, the science program equips students with training to get them into the workforce quickly after graduation. “The kids are flourishing. We are preparing them for highly sought after tech careers which they are uniquely suited to work in these fields,” Harrison said.
Winning the Yass Prize means that planned expansion in other Arizonan communities can now take place. Additionally, Harrison is eager to help build similar autism charters in other cities around the country. She intends to create a type of playbook, partnering with South Florida Autism Charter School, to offer specialized training and access to a toolbox of materials to create specialty schools in communities all over America.
AZACS’s learning opportunities will be able to offer their students better earning power after they graduate and become productive members of society. “We are changing the narrative to see themselves as problem-solvers who contribute instead of seeing themselves as special education kids who are disabled. It is fascinating to see them flourish with their unique thinking patterns—to see what they can do.”
If you ask what education means to people, most will think “school.” If they are jaded, “debt.” But for the first great American family, it was much more than this.
In his autobiography, “The Education of Henry Adams,” the author describes growing up within a celebrated lineage that, by his lifetime, had become a cultural institution. During his childhood, Henry wrote, he would often transition between the Boston home of his father Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln’s future ambassador to England during the Civil War, and the home of his grandfather John Quincy Adams, where he played in the former president’s library. Sitting at his writing table as “a boy of ten or twelve,” he proof-read the collected works of his great-grandfather John Adams that his father was preparing for publication. While practicing Latin grammar, he would listen to distinguished gentlemen, who represented “types of the past,” discuss politics. His education, he reflected, was “an eighteenth-century inheritance” that was “colonial” in atmosphere. While he always revered his forebears and felt they were right about everything, he observed that this learning style did not sufficiently prepare him “for his own time”—a modern age that was increasingly defined by technology, commerce, and empire.
Henry Adams is today considered one of America’s greatest historians. Given this, one would probably conclude that his education served him exceedingly well, even if he hoped to produce history rather than merely record it. The substance of his educational ideals was, when stripped of their luxurious trappings, very similar to that of our second and sixth presidents. Although this was precisely the problem for a young man growing up in a new industrial epoch, there is much to admire about this cultivated reverence for tradition. Values, unlike skill sets, do not become obsolete.
Graduation photo of Henry B. Adams from the Harvard College Class of 1858. Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. (public domain)
A Father Teaches His Son
The wealth and privilege Henry Adams experienced was far removed from the boyhood circumstances of his most famous forefather three generations previously. John Adams was born in a simple farmhouse where the family’s only valuable possessions were three silver spoons. The key to his rise was education. Not only of the formal kind, but of character. John took inspiration from his descendants, “a line of virtuous, independent New England farmers.” When he complained of losing interest in his studies due to a churlish teacher at his schoolhouse, his father, a deacon, enrolled him in a private school. Later, the deacon sold 10 acres of land to pay for his son’s college fund.
John admired his father, striving to embody the qualities of sincerity and patriotism he instilled. He called the deacon “the honestest man” he ever knew and passed on these ideals to his own son, John Quincy Adams. While John was in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress, he instructed young “Johnny” through letters. Writing to Abigail on June 29, 1777, he said, “Let him be sure that he possesses the great virtue of temperance, justice, magnanimity, honor, and generosity, and with these added to his parts, he cannot fail to become a wise and great man.”
In letters to John Quincy during this same year, John advised his son to acquire “a taste for literature and a turn for business” that would allow for both subsistence and entertainment. Reading the historian Thucydides, preferably in the original Greek, would provide him with “the most solid instruction … to act on the stage of life,” whether that part be orator, statesman, or general. While John was away, Abigail constantly upheld her husband to John Quincy as an example of professional achievement and courage. She encouraged him to study the books in his father’s library and forbade him from being in “the company of rude children.”
For the Adamses, books were not just the means to a career, but a key to unlocking the sum of a person’s life. Education encompassed experience, conduct, and social ties. Like his grandson Henry, young John Quincy was sometimes unsure whether he would be able to live up to his ancestors’ example.
John Adams, second president of the United States from 1797–1801. Official presidential portrait of John Adams by John Trumbull, circa 1792–1793. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)
A Family Heritage
John instructed John Quincy more directly when taking him along on diplomatic missions in Europe. In Paris, John Quincy began keeping a daily journal at his father’s request, recording “objects that I see and characters that I converse with.” John Quincy observed his father staying up at all hours to assemble diplomatic reports and would later emulate this diligent work ethic.
He then accompanied John to Holland. At the age of 13, he “scored his first diplomatic triumph,” according to biographer Harlow Unger. The precocious young student, dazzling professors with his erudition at the University of Leiden, caught the eye of an important scholar and lawyer named Jean Luzac. John Quincy introduced Luzac to his father, then struggling to convince the Dutch government to give America financial assistance in its costly war with Britain. Luzac was impressed with the Adams family, advocated their cause of independence, and succeeded in securing crucial loans for the desperate young nation.
John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States from 1825–1829. Official presidential portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1858. Oil on canvas. White House Collection, Washington, D.C. (public domain)
During this time, John Adams encouraged his son to continue studying the great historians of antiquity: “In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue.” He closed his letter by emphasizing the importance of the heart’s authority over the mind: “The end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen. This will ever be the sum total of the advice of your affectionate Father.”
John Quincy, ever the obedient son, attended to both the wisdom of the distant past and his family heritage that enshrined it. While following in John’s footsteps as a diplomat, and later president, he would pass these values on to his own children.
The success, achievement, and public legacy of the Adams family has everything to do with this conception of education as a living inheritance. Writing over a century later, Henry Adams saw the role of learning as a lifelong endeavor that was difficult to justify through any specific practical or monetary measurement. But, he added, “the practical value of the universe has never been stated in dollars.”
