A Debt Paid Forward

Dear Boo and Bubble,

We are in Greenville, SC, today to celebrate your great granddaddy Scheafer’s tenure as an adjunct professor at Furman University.  He taught Business Law there for over forty years.  One of our dear friends, David Ellison, and his wife Frances have honored him with the designation of The Furman Standard – a description reserved for exemplary professors.

In nominating granddaddy for The Standard, David described how Schaefer stepped in as a surrogate in the critical years following the death of his own father during the Sophomore year at Furman.  Granddaddy truly did view David as a son, giving him the benefit of counsel and guidance whenever he sought it and opening the doors of 3 Lakecrest to be a home as if it were his own. 

What David probably doesn’t know is that granddaddy was paying forward the generosity and love someone gave to him years before in similar circumstances.

My great grandfather John Wesley Kendrick died when Schaefer was 16 years old, right at the middle of the Great Depression.  His care, including education, fell on the shoulders of your great, great grandmother Mattie, who moved in with her mother, Mamie Peninah,at her house on Pendleton Street in Greenville.  It is never a good time to be without a father figure, but the teenage years perhaps are the worst. 

Fortunately, granddaddy had a best friend, Steve Stephenson, whose father Harry stepped into the role of surrogate. Harry was a very prominent figure in Greenville.  As the president of Southern Bleachery, he held a financial status in the community exaggerated by the depression and its impact on most everyone else.  The Stephensons lived in a virtual, stately castle located on Paris Mountain overlooking the city.  Constructed before World War I by a German immigrant, Rockwold projected quite an imposing presence with its granite walls and circular porches surrounded by immaculately manicured grounds and gardens.  Harry traded out some of his compensation from the Bleachery in the form of workmen to help maintain Rockwold.

Granddaddy became a fixture at Rockwold.  He and Steve attended Greenville High School together, played on the basketball team and were inseparable during their junior and senior years. 

When the time came to go to college, Steve went off to Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia.  Granddaddy attended Furman where he could take advantage of a lower tuition and save on room and board by living on Pendleton Street.  At the beginning of every year, however, Harry called Schaefer up to Rockwold for a visit at which time he requested of granddaddy an estimate of the money needed for expenses over the next semesters.  Harry wrote granddaddy a check for the agreed amount.

This practice continued even through Granddaddy’s years at the University of South Carolina Law School. 

In 1942, WWII interrupted everyone’s lives and plans.  Granddaddy had just opened his law practice and was engaged to marry Mamaw Mary.  Rather than a wedding ceremony in Houston, Texas, they said their vows in Chicago, Illinois, at the chapel on the campus of Northwestern University.  Granddaddy had been called up to the “Ninety-Day Wonder School” for the Judge Advocate Generals’ Corps where lawyers went to train for the military equivalent of the justice system. 

During this time, Granddaddy determined to begin paying the money back that Harry had given to him over the years.  Faithfully, every month, he sent a check for $1.00 (which was a pretty hefty sum during that time).  He wrote in the description line “Repayment of loan…H.R. Stephenson.”

I don’t know how many $1.00 checks Granddaddy wrote over the years, but I do know this……Harry never cashed any of them.

Harry remained a dominant figure in Granddaddy’s life for years, as did Steve a best friend.  Sometimes in life, boys, you will find that you have opportunities to pay forward your good fortune.  Make sure that you do.