There is always a gate. Sometimes it is swinging in, and at other times, swinging out. For every gate there is an experience. There are people to relate to the gate whether it be of wood, metal, or stone.
Some gates are ornate, and others brightly painted. Some are rusty, creaking, and only half on an abandoned post. Always the gate is engaged in a struggle against the elements created by both nature and man.
At the gate there are always hopes, memories, ambitions, and experiences. Of all the creations, these vital ingredients have been reserved for man alone. Both the generosity and the responsibility of these gifts are overwhelming. Thankfully, there is a balance which causes the gate to swing in one direction with pressure, and in another with pull.
As we reach into the tomorrow of yet another year, we must close our gate on some great events which are now history. All of us have our own reflection as we see an old year out and anticipate the new. I trust that you will have your own parade of thoughts as I relate my own gate experiences.
In the past year a gate was opened for a member of our family. This was a farewell gate for one who had seen nearly 82 years as a treasured component of our inner circle. She was the one who had laughed with such understanding when a small boy on a very black night was encouraged to set a new record for the 100 yard dash. The route was from the barn to the back porch and was initiated by the groan of a rusty hinge supporting a sagging gate.
She it was who often summed up the ambition of this youth with the impossible goal, "He's all too often reaching for the moon." She lived long enough to hear her little granddaughter say, "I used to think Daddy was so tall he could walk up on a stepladder and touch the sky." In the time of that grandmother, other young Americans opened the impossible gate--reached the moon and walked upon it. It couldn't be done and yet is was...in 1970.
Hardly had that departing latch dropped before another was being lifted to accommodate someone coming in our gate. For those who are interested, there is a grandson. We have our miracle and he picked my birthday to enter the gate.
Undoubtedly, gates are important, and for some 17 years I sat on a great campus where I could watch the arrival of young men and women as they walked between the great brick posts and under the identifying ironwork. For many this was a giant step which would be appreciated and assimilated.
The bricks and mortar were there, the knowledge of generations waited in the library, and many fertile minds were ready to share the largest word in research and discovery. Like the structure of bricks and the mortar, knowledge is built on fact and finding, a step at a time.
Each generation adds a segment to the great mosaic of life. All too often there are those who exit through the gate after a short struggle, for the campus hills offer a challenge. Others see the green grass which borders the pathway lading to the great outside and depart. For some, it will remain green, but for most, it will lose its vigor as the distance from the gate increases.
Fortunately, there are many who have the means, the stamina, and the desire to complete the experience and enjoy not only the climax parade before family and friends, but also the fruits of effort.
It is difficult for us to look at the interesting experience we call life without realizing that each generation and each year goes beyond that which preceded it. Somehow the combination of the certainty of yesterday gives the hope that is required for tomorrow.
Indeed the story is an old one, but deeply significant...So many have not heard it yet...The young man left home and walked through the gate to seek his fortune in his own way. For a time those who had contributed most to his preparation were forgotten and ignored.
The years passed and an aging mother and father received a letter. Briefly it stated, "I will be on the train next Wednesday. If I am welcome at home, after the years of heartache and neglect I have caused, please hang a white cloth on the cherry tree at the edge of town. If there is no cloth, I will know I am not welcome."
When the train reached the town limits, a passenger viewed an old tree completely covered with bed sheets.
It has been good to re-live old days, but it means even more to be a part of the preparation for an unexplored tomorrow. I think I'll spend a few moments with the thoughts of the English school teacher in India.
She faced an uncertain road, and her answer may well have a message for the League, for the leadership, for 150,000 members representing 58 federal agencies and for you and for me...
"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness and put thy hand in the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.'"
David L. Brigham
Executive Director
Showing posts with label University of Maryland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Maryland. Show all posts
August 28, 2009
August 20, 2009
Profiles of Reuben Brigham
From the website of the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences:
The Reuben Brigham Award is offered in memory of Reuben Brigham (1887-1946), a native of Marlboro, Mass., and graduate of the University of Maryland. He served as an extension editor and 4-H Club agent in Maryland and was called to the Federal Extension Service office in 1917 to develop an editorial and visual aids service for extension editors. Brigham traveled the nation, conferring with editors and directors, and helped states develop their own editorial offices as separate units.
He organized the American Association of Agricultural College Editors and served as its president, secretary and treasurer. He established the Extension Service Review in 1939 and participated in the Farm and Home Hour of the National Broadcasting Company. During the Depression, he helped develop action agencies of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. As head of a regional section of the AAA information office, he ensured that extension staffs were involved in that organization’s information plans. He later was appointed assistant director of the Federal Extension Service and was associated with extension directors, the land-grant college association and policy-making committees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Brigham died in Chicago while attending a meeting at the National 4-H Club Congress.
The Reuben Brigham Award, established in 1947, is reserved for a communicator, including a public relations or advertising professional, who has made a a major contribution in the field of agriculture, natural resources, or life and human sciences at the regional, national or international level. Active and retired members of ACE, a land-grant college or university staff, or USDA staffs are not eligible for the award. (Click for a list of past winners.)
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A profile from the ACE retirees website:
Reuben Brigham. President 1924-25. U. S. Department of Agriculture
Reuben Brigham was born Dec. 13, 1887 in Marlboro, Mass. He was the son of a farmer and professor of agriculture. He graduated from the Maryland Agricultural College (later the University of Maryland) in 1908. For the next five years he operated a farm in Maryland, then returned to the university in 1913 to serve as secretary of Alumni Affairs to the university president. When the Smith-Lever Act established the extension service later that year, he joined the Maryland College of Agriculture staff where he was their first extension editor and 4-H club agent.
In 1917 he joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s extension service in Washington, D.C. to develop an editorial and visual-aids service for extension editors. He also started the Extension Service Review magazine in 1930.
During the depression years of the 1930s, he joined the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) where he was in charge of a regional section of the “Triple A” information office. In this position, he “saw to it that the college editors of the nation were used in all information plans and that the local state extension staff, including the editor, was not by-passed. . ..” He later returned to the extension service and was named assistant director.
He died unexpectedly Dec. 6, 1946 while attending the National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago—one week short of his 59th birthday. Following Reuben Brigham’s death, Past President Frank Jeter (North Carolina) said, “Brigham has as much to do with the successful formation and organization of the American Association of Agricultural College Editors as any other one single person.” Since 1947 AAACE/ACE has given the annual Reuben Brigham Award to honor the contributions in agricultural, home economics, and rural communication of a person outside its membership—the organization’s highest award.
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And finally the culmination of a recent research project by Scout Jim Bikel titled "Reuben Brigham: Legend Unveiled," dated March 21, 2009, about the founder and first scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop #264. He presented his project to the 10th annual Montgomery County gathering for National History Day. I had the pleasure of meeting Jim Bikel--a very nice young man--and I think he did a great job here. I have inserted two minor corrections into the text, which appear within brackets and are italicized:
Introduction
As part of a competition for an extracurricular activity known as National History Day, I did a research project on Mr. Reuben Brigham, commonly known to you as the troop’s founder. National History Day is a competition that is similar to a science fair for history. This year, the NHD had a theme of legacy. They recommended that we each pick a person from any period of history to research, and to focus on their lasting impact on the community, nation or world. While others focused on more well-known characters such as John Wilkes Booth, Walter Reed or Dr. Bird, I chose a lesser known character that I knew impacted me. Reuben Brigham, I knew, founded our scout troop in 1927. I knew nothing else about him, and didn’t expect much. Instead, I found he left much more than a scout troop behind. Be aware that I write about only what I was able to find out, and it is likely that some information is missing.
Childhood Years and Early Background
Reuben Brigham was born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, on December 13, 1887. His early years were spent growing up on a farm. His father taught him the farming methods himself, and Reuben also went to many different schools. He grew up not only in America, but in several other nations, including Germany and Japan. Sometime, he moved to the United States again and settled in Ashton, MD. He went to the University of Maryland (known back then as the Maryland Agricultural College), and he then graduated in 1908. After his graduation, he farmed for five years until his life became interesting.
Parcel Post
Ever wonder how that package came to your door? Ever wonder who started the Parcel Post? Farmers in the United States long wanted a government parcel service, due to the high prices that private companies would require. You often had two choices with items. You could pay more than half the worth to ship your products east or you could let them rot while you haul them yourself over the Appalachian Mountains. The reverse was true with getting something. If you needed, say, a Model-T car-to-tractor conversion kit so you could use a gasoline engine instead of a stubborn mule to plow your fields, you would have to pay the evil railroad companies more than twice the value of the kit to ship it to where you could pick it up, or you could take the dangerous route east yourself to get the part, leaving your farm unattended and spending hard-earned cash on gasoline and such. The National Grange, a large nationwide organization that farmers used to unionize and advocate for farmer rights, had turned a blind eye to it. Mr. Brigham, of the Olney Grange, wasn’t about to let a good plan go to waste. (The Olney Grange was a branch of the Maryland Grange, a branch of the National Grange, which was formed as unions won battles in industry while envious farmers still struggled.) By encouraging congressman David J. Lewis to test its soundness in Congress, he managed to get it through. There were many points at which the Honorable David J. Lewis admitted he felt like giving up. He said that through Mr. Brigham’s bottomless enthusiasm, he managed to gain enough support to get the legislation passed. Farmers and city folks nationwide loved it. A farmer now did not have to spend near as much to get a stupid part, so he was able to expand his farm more rapidly, and the customers ended up paying much less due to the significantly lowered shipping costs. The only downfall to this legislation was that the railroad companies were going bankrupt (eventually leading some of them to unite as CSX.) So next time you receive a package at the door, think about how it all started-from that same man who founded our scout troop.
The Agricultural Department
Ever hear about the United States Department of Agriculture? (You know, that government agency that inspects meat, leaving a sticker on it if it looks good enough?) It was originally started to help farmers and ranchers become educated about their actions, work, and sanitation, and to clean up the meat-packing industry scandals. According to the Agricultural Extension Service, he was called to the Department of Agriculture in 1917 to take charge of producing visual and editorial materials. After serving a year in the army, he returned to the agricultural department. He worked in the Agricultural Extension Service, which was created for the purpose of gathering the above stated materials. In the Extension service, he created a magazine which is still published today, known as the Agriculture Extension Service Review. In 1933, he was placed in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (remember learning about FDR’s New Deal in History Class?). There he developed a regional contact division, which was used as a public relations committee for the AAA and other depression and wartime agencies. (The AAA was later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.) Another of his extension jobs was being the 4-H Club leader to Maryland, and he eventually became the top figure in the national 4-H Club. The 4-H Club was an organization founded to teach farm youth the basics of farming and how to do it the right way (preventing another Dust Bowl), and to give farm youth a proper education and upbringing. In his work, Mr. Brigham was very dedicated. He would not give the people he needed to contact a telephone call or a proper letter, but instead he would go out there in person and talk and become friendly with the farmers. He was so attached to his work that he died of an ailment when he went out west to contact a few farmers in 1946.
Mr. Brigham and War
In 1918, a year after Reuben joined the Agricultural Department, he joined the army. He fought as one of millions of “doughboys” fighting in WWI for the Allies against the Central Powers. He only fought for a single year, and not too much is known about his actions, most likely because he was no one of high rank. Reuben’s children were all involved in WWII. His son, David Brigham, served in the Pacific, and his other son served in Europe. His daughter became an army nurse. Mr. Brigham understood how the Axis Powers saw the war from their point of view, instead of just the Allied view, having grown up in Japan and Germany himself.
Mr. Brigham and Family
As stated before, Mr. Brigham’s father had dragged Reuben’s childhood all over the world. Mr. Brigham married Marjorie Snowden on June 7, 1915 at Ingleside
Property and House
Mr. Brigham bought his property from Francis Snowden in 1921. He built his house, named Glyndon, and that house still stands. It is visible at 1022 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Ashton, MD. Our troop used to do our annual primitive there, but due to a problem with the neighbors, we have used the Haviland property as a substitute. (I will not discuss this too much, because I am bound to get it wrong, not knowing all the details.) On his property, he and his wife are buried as previously stated side-by-side. Besides the grave markers, there are different memorials honoring him, one from the American Legion Post #68, (which he helped found after WWI and which is still the sponsor of the troop), another from the University of Maryland Class of ’08 (1908, not 2008), and another from “Friends in Agriculture”.
Brigham and Youth
Mr. Brigham believed in the proper upbringing of rural youth. This is visible through the 4-H clubs he was involved with. David Brigham Senior has already written his brief memoir about the Troop’s history, so I shall not restate that. To access it, follow this link.
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Correspondence from the late 1940's between Reuben "Shorty" Brigham and John William Firor are housed in Duke University Library's collection of Firor's papers, indexed here but not available online. Measuring in at 6'6" tall, this "Shorty" must be our Reuben.
December 1, 2008
At his desk
This is David L. Brigham working at his desk. I do not have any other information about this photograph though. It was taken at his place of work and not at his desk at home, which was considerably more crowded. Please comment if you know the year, the photographer, and/or the location. Thanks!
--Barb
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