(Dan read this at his father-in-law’s memorial service. It was a pefectly paced, precise and moving tribute, and encapsulated, for me, the importance of this type of sharing service as I could imagine a momentary lifting of Linda’s pain.)

Arthur Scott Laughland

August 20, 1924 — April 24, 2007

Reading from Chapter 4, First American Year, by Arthur Laughland
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From those humble beginnings in America, Arthur Laughland, through necessity and persistence, overcame all obstacles, eventually earning a Doctorate in Education, and the Principal-ship of a Newton elementary school.

The man I came to meet in 1983, as I was arrived onto the scene of the Laughland family, immediately impressed me as an accomplished, intelligent, charming, and self-effacing father and educator.

Underscore “self-effacing”. From the growing-up stories Linda would tell me, I was amazed at the hardships he overcame raising his young family in a hut in England with a dirt floor and no indoor plumbing, and later in a tiny apartment above the horse barn of the uber-wealthy Dole Pineapple Lincolns of Chestnut Hill, where the children had to share the same bath water every night, and in Winter had to put their school clothes on under their blankets in order not to freeze in the morning.

I did not gain a full appreciation of his greatness as an educator until I experienced how royally he was celebrated by his beloved faculty on his retirement in the late 80’s.

I had not fully appreciated his command of history — and of *his* story — until I witnessed first-hand his prodigious memory for childhood detail, when in my presence, armed with a tape recorder, he began dictating his memoirs.

While his quiet greatness was gradually unveiled to me during family events over the last 24 years, it was not until his last 76 days, when he came to live with us on February 8th, following his neck hospitalization, that I really got to know what a truly special man he was.

Here was a man almost completely blind, who had lost his wife of thirty years just 9 months earlier, with just enough strength to shuffle about our house in his walker, wearing a stiff collar around his neck — yet uttering nary a complaint, always gentle, listening intently to every conversation, doling out encouraging and fatherly advice to me on appropriate occasions.

Here was a man that despite a broken neck (and, I would say to myself, a broken life), could still establish a special relationship with Geish, a very special person herself, who came twice a week from Emerson Home Care to bathe him.

Here was an 82 year old man that despite his stiff neck and fierce longing for the independence of living back in his own house, was still flexible enough to adapt to *our* routine, eating dinner with us every night on a TV table watching the PBS News Hour, even though he would have much preferred sitting at the dining table.

Here was a man capable of introspection, and courageous and generous enough to share with Linda and me his most intimate thoughts, fears, desires, and self-doubts.

Here was a man that despite a life of accomplishment and quiet greatness, would castigate himself “a fool” for this or that foible or minor accident.

Here is a man that showed me by example how to comport myself, if and when it should come to be my turn to be cared for by one my children in their home.

Here is a great man, whose immortality is in his children and in those he quietly touched.

Here is a quietly great man: Arthur Scott Laughland.