A Treasured Legacy

Everybody receives a treasured legacy. And everybody leaves one … or more.

What legacy have you received? Or perhaps, legacies.

Before answering that, let’s discuss what a legacy includes. Definitions range from the inheritance of a gift—money, jewels, property, etc.—to a birthright. Something received from an ancestor or another person … or left for another person.

Heritage is often a synonym for legacy, though I believe there is a significant difference. To me, heritage comes as a whole package deal. My heritage comes from my German-Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors. It includes some names that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but German: Reichelderfer, for one. And it holds some unique quirks, such as our daughters refusing to answer me when I phrase my questions as such: “Would you toss me over here that skein of yarn, please?” (I don’t know what their problem is with that. Do you? I said, “please”!)

For me, a physical legacy comes from a specific person or group. I received my grandmother’s teacup collection and my dad’s 1950s guitar. Someday, I may be given the grandfather clock my great-grandfather made in the 1940s, stating it should be passed down to the first daughter in each family. (I say “may” because it’s taller than my current ceilings! They grew taller houses back then, you know.)

Though I treasure those teacups, the memories of my grandmother telling us stories over countless cups of tea or coffee have more of a hold on me than the material items. And though I treasure my dad’s guitar, the legacy for me comes from the hours of listening to him play the old country western songs and hearing his baritone-bass voice singing with Johnny Cash and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Legacy Lessons – Resourcefulness

However, for this post, I want to first talk about the legacy my lineage has left me that doesn’t focus on material items. My maternal grandmother, who left me the teacups, as well as my maternal grandfather and my paternal grandmother all came from the generation during and after the Great Depression of the 1930s, and their motto was “waste-not-want-not.”

This particular legacy helped me in the early years of my marriage while putting my husband through college and living on $25 per month for groceries. It also gave me the resourcefulness to manage the years after that when our children came along, and we made the decision for me to be a stay-at-home mom and homeschool them. Living on one income during those years of intense inflation took some finagling with the budget and quite a bit of babysitting … for parents who were themselves struggling to make ends meet … much like today, I imagine.

But watching my grandparents save every piece of string off packages, fold used wrapping paper to reuse, and let hems out of pants over and over again until nothing remained to let down gave me those tools I needed. We survived and taught our children by example how to be thrifty (which is surely helping them raise their families in today’s economic challenges – part of my legacy to them).

Legacy Lessons – Giving

Because of these lessons, I also learned how to manage money … and how to give. I’ve heard it said, “You have enough to give enough.” This rang out each time my maternal grandparents, who lived off a meager social security check, stuffed a twenty-dollar bill in my husband’s pocket on our way out their door after a visit.

It rang again the day my paternal grandmother tucked a five-dollar bill in the envelope with a letter she sent to my husband and me when he was going to school. I knew her as someone who never had much to extend, having raised her family mostly on her own during the 1940s and ‘50s. For her to do that surprised us, as well as blessed our socks off. The day that envelope arrived in the mail, we had fumes in the gas tank, ice cubes the only resident in the fridge, and nothing in our wallets.

No, the money wasn’t it. The lesson of giving when we don’t think we can is a lesson for a lifetime. There’s always “enough to give enough,” even a bagful of groceries from the thrift store left on a family member’s porch during a rough spot in his family’s life. To save his pride, I left a bill: “The store had a one-cent sale today. You owe me thirty-eight cents for the thirty-eight items inside this bag. Due the next time we see you.” Today, that person has gone on to help us repeatedly in monetary and service ways. The legacy continues.

And money isn’t the only way my family’s legacy to me of giving shows up often. My childhood home had an invisible sign: “Strays welcome here.” Dogs and cats often showed up in our yard, victims of passers-by dropping them out the car door on their way down our country road. And I’m not talking three or four; I’m talking dozens! And most of them stayed the night … the next day … forever. Some we found homes for; some became members of our family.

Legacy Lessons – Sharing

My parents took in “stray” people—down on their luck people, wayward family members, local college students—gave them a home and provided for them through food, clothes, shelter, and love. They had good examples of this in their parents and their parents before them.

When my 80-year-old uncle returned to PA from a six-year stay in New Mexico, he was basically homeless. The home we bought in 2000 had a small trailer which we’d intended to rent out. The first person who lived there came later that year, a homeless woman who stayed about a month, then disappeared. After that, a series of separated spouses with their families, a young man who ended up sleeping in his car, a few young couples who found themselves in the family way without time to plan, and finally, my uncle. Most of these people stayed rent-free; some gave us what they could whenever they had a little.

I haven’t mentioned these things to toot our horn but to give an idea of how far-reaching a legacy can be. Currently, this particular legacy has extended over 100 years. And it continues through our daughters! At least two have had non-family members living with them while those people found themselves and found a new home. I expect our grandchildren of the Alpha Generation (those born after 2010) won’t be the last of the generations finding out what a treasure this legacy of giving is.

Legacy Lessons – DIY

AND my family’s legacy didn’t end there! Anyone else out there never had to call a repairman? (Disclaimer, we finally had to call one, but more on that later!) my grandfather was the quintessential “jack of all trades.” He could build a house, do plumbing and some electrical work, fix his car, grow his own food, invent his own solutions to fill the place an item he couldn’t afford, and so on and so on. My uncle I mentioned above, my husband, and my two brothers learned from him. They all have children and/or grandchildren who have learned from them.

Need the toilet replaced? Call Pop. Need the roof repaired? Call my brother. Need electrical sockets replaced or a lamp rewired? Call my husband. Need an oil change? Call any of them and someone will come running. What a treasure that is!

Until recently, with my husband’s declining physical health and my brothers’ move several hours away, we never had to call a repairman except to clean and replace our furnace. But this year, when the water pump went out and our pipes froze for over a week, we had to call a plumber. And guess what we found? A father-son duo whose business is definitely a legacy!

From “waste-not” givers to stray welcomers to DIY-ers, my family’s legacy will continue to be a treasure to many to come, and to the families, friends, and strangers who’ve walked through our doors.

Our Heavenly Legacy

But you know, we have the best Legacy Treasure as our Example. Our Heavenly Father left us the legacy of giving: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38, NKJV)

He left us a legacy of sharing: “Jesus said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren {the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, prisoner}, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:40, NKJV)

And Jesus left us the grandest of all Treasured Legacies: the legacy of the Holy Spirit. When we accept the gift of salvation, the Third Member of the Holy Trinity is left within us. This Treasured Legacy will come to mean more to us than any other legacy left to us could. His help and guidance in our lives will never leave us struggling, stranded, lost, alone, or in despair.

So, I ask again: “What legacy have you received?” And what legacy do you hope to leave? Please use the comment section below to share your legacy thoughts.

I pray you, as I, have the indescribable Treasured Legacy of God and will do what you can to “leave” Him as part of your legacy AND heritage to your descendants for all time.