My father passed away during the worst of COVID. We were only able to bury him last month. Here were my words, remembering him.
Jack Lessig was a husband of almost 60 years. He was a father, forever. And for 20 years, he was the president of a steel fabricating firm in Pennsylvania, before retiring here, to Bluffton, to design and building houses, and eventually, as intended, to retire.
Were he here today, he’d tell you about each of these stages, with joy and love, and sometimes, pride. But he would not tell you about the part of who he was that was the most important to me — his son, a professor: He would not tell you about his life as a teacher.
Because in everything he did, Jack Lessig was a teacher. Never in a lecture hall. Never standing before others, presuming to know more than they. But always in what he did, and in how he did it. Always in the quiet humility of doing right, with a love and understanding that he drew from the love that speaks in buildings like this. As the poet and novelist in our family would recognize, Jack Lessig lived his life by showing, not saying. Which is to say that he lived his life teaching in the only way anyone ever learns.
I think about this all the time with him, in the smallest things, and in the most…
