James E McNalley
2003
Norwich, VT
My great-grandfather Larry Leavitt, or "Bapa" as almost every younger member of his family affectionately called him, had been living in Norwich, Vermont, for decades before my immediate family moved there when I was three. Although I had heard of him in the years before and spent time with him briefly, he became one of my first real role models in a new environment that was, as all new places are at first, devoid of friends.
Since we moved in across the street from Bapa, I spent one or two hours almost every Sunday with my mother visiting the then 90-year old man who would, much to my delight, offer me cookies from the red, apple-shaped cookie jar. The simple pleasure of this food quickly gave way to an interest in the family he grew up with in Portsmouth, NH and Saxtons River, VT and the long line of Leavitts he came from, the family that had settled so long ago in New England.
I learned over the years, through Bapa's other direct descendants, that he attended Dartmouth, starred on the football team, and became such a positive force for the university that a plaque in his honor is placed at the entrance to the football stadium. He later became the headmaster of Vermont Academy; indeed, the most significant portion of the private school's reconstruction was attributed to his presence and guidance over the decades he spent there as its head.
Bapa died in 2000, at the age of 97. Countless graduates of Vermont Academy, Dartmouth and every other institution he helped will remember him for his accomplishments as a headmaster or fellow student. I take pride in knowing that I had the rare opportunity to know him as something more; a grandfather and a friend. I will remember my great-grandfather for his frugality, self-reliance, respect for heritage, accomplishment, and sense of tradition, but I will always treasure the characteristic he possessed the most; kindness. Bapa was one of the most influential and compassionate men I had the privilege to know, and he embodies what I am most proud of in my Leavitt heritage. I can only hope and strive to become even close to the kind of man he was.
