by Robert Amedee L’Ecuyer

Wisdom Over Time

As somebody who has spent a lot of time on it, I would like to think wisdom takes time. But maybe that’s not so. Lauren is getting all sorts of information in new ways. I’m limited by how I can look at something on the computer. She doesn’t have the same limitations. On the other hand she has more coming at her. I sorted from a smaller pile. I don’t know that I understand how she sorts information. 

She’s done fairly well, clearly! Student body, Board of Regents, a law degree, and a career off to a strong start. She’s able to pick out her successes. I’m proud that she has done it, but those are her wins and I don’t claim to know how she does it.  

What are the rules for wisdom that still work no matter your age? Be open and look for relationships that are relevant. That gives you capacity and that’s an advantage. You may be in a small group but you have infinitely greater capacity together. 

Most people are wise. Not about everything, but they know something that you can benefit from knowing. To start, it was my father, who was a bright man. He was a year ahead of everybody in his school; his mother started him at age four. He was learning at home with his four older siblings before that too. First in his class in high school. He graduated at age 15, and immediately chose to go to the University of Kansas. 

They were a Catholic family and it was a public college. That was a big deal. Uncle Doc had gone to St Louis, and my dad was expected to go there. There wasn’t a Catholic high school in Concordia, so he already knew about public school. Then Fern contracted TB and Dandu took her to El Paso Texas to recover in a dry climate. That left HK at home, and he stayed in the home of his HS English teacher with her two kids. She was not Catholic. Family thought that’s what influenced him to go to KU. 

He met my mom during that year. She was in social work at KU too. Aunt Pinky was teaching at KU, so Mom went there. Pinky taught in Montana and at a junior college in Kansas City, and mom went to both those schools too. He was an honors student at KU and went right to work as a social worker. No pay because it was the middle of the depression. To get a job he had to work for nothing for a year. Louella was in Kansas City, so he lived with her for that year. 

I don’t know much about their early life because I was an early pregnancy. They never told those stories because you were careful what you said. They just didn’t talk about that early time. My mother was three years older to the day, both born April 12, Mom in 1910 and Dad in 1913. 

My dad got established working at that agency in Kansas City and he worked there a few years. Then got a job in Sedalia, MO in charge of a social work federal program for 16 counties in Missouri. I remember that vaguely. I was three. Then he was hired to be county welfare director in Cloud County. We moved there, and that’s where my sister Sally was born. 

Dad reexamined what he was doing after the depression, that there might not be as many opportunities in social work. He got a scholarship to Harvard Graduate School of Business through good credentials and a connection with a full professor. 

Dad graduated from Harvard and was offered a number of opportunities. He took the one to teach at the University of Western Ontario. So we moved from Cambridge Massachusetts to London, Ontario. We went to London, and there I was the Yankee with my Canadian class. 

My dad expected me to study and to compete. I realize now that I was bright but I had a problem with concentration. I was always curious about the next thing. I didn’t stick to a job or a school topic. My mind wandered. My dad tried, but I didn’t learn what to do about that until I was in my 40s. Up until then I would wait until it was a crisis, then work as hard as I could. And then wait until the next crisis comes. 

All my teachers were women going through grade school, most of them wise women. I didn’t have a male teacher that was a serious person in my life until my last year of high school. I was put in a class on government with HC Stewart, the assistant principal. I loved studying government and this guy demanded more of me. I performed in class because I respected him. He was wise about getting high school kids to perform. 

From then, I chose teachers who pushed me and I ended up taking a lot of classes that other people didn’t. I took a speech class where there were only six of us. Twice a week with only six of us, we were on our feet all the time speaking on something. The professor was working with us individually for an hour a week for an entire semester. There was a lot of wisdom in doing it that way. 

At KU, I decided to join a fraternity with a very small membership. I was initiated and six weeks later elected VP of the chapter, and then elected President the next year. By that time our membership was up to 44 and I was included in meetings with the Chancellor of the University. With all the other frat presidents we met twice a month. Franklin Murphy, had been the dean of the medical school at age 38 and by 44 was president. He was a big deal. Later on he moved to California and became president of UCLA. I learned how to manage groups of people from him, and it was part of what prompted me to get interested in politics. 

Barbara’s dad was probably the nicest man I ever met. He became a wise man to me in the sense that he was my father-in-law. I loved being around him. My National Guard drills were in Kansas City and I would go in for night drills and stay with her family at 905 Gilmore. Barbara wasn’t there so I got to know her family independently. I saw how he got small jobs done, the odd repairs to the house or the car. 

Stella worked nights and he worked days. They had four kids together but by that time they were just passing each other. I knew there was not much of a relationship there. He slept in the basement with Ernie. But whatever needed to be done, he took care of it. 

Through your mom, I learned there were plenty of wise women in politics. There was a  point that became obvious to me, when I was promoting women to run for Congress. At that time, women were learning to compete. That began in my parents’ generation and increased rapidly. Before women were either nurses or teachers, and they didn’t have the opportunity to be in charge of things. 

Your mother is one of the wisest women I’ve ever met, and you and your sisters are too. You’re all competing on your own terms. I see that Courtney, Lauren, and Claire compete much more equally with men. 

Don’t be afraid to ask people about what they know. Everybody wants to feel like they’re special. If you let them be the expert, you can get a lot of relevant information. There are a lot of interesting things beyond politics, too. Being in politics gave me a chance to talk to great people. Someone else taught me how to carry a rifle in the forest so that it’s not a threat to anybody. There are all kinds of things to learn and wise people to show you.