What Will Be Your Legacy?
It is always great to be remembered and known for any contributions you have made to make your home, your town or your society a better place. For the month of August, it is known as National Legacy Month.
What a great way to extend your legacy, spend part of August to compile your contributions no matter how small. It can be as simple as a good citizen, paid your taxes, worked hard and raised a great family.
However, there are other items you might have forgotten about … having a career as a teacher for example and how you affected for the better even one child along the way. As a former 7th grade teacher, I’m thrilled to speak or learn about what became of some of my former students. Some have great careers … lawyers, bankers, school board members, city chiefs of police, and even one student who followed in my same path as a teacher and then a school administrator. When you have a student remember some of the special courses or activities you did in the classroom, that is making a difference. It does not have to be a career that has the legacy.
Volunteering is a wonderful method of leaving a legacy. There are so many different places, organizations, hospitals, societies, museums, etc., where your expertise can be used. How that is a positive legacy.
So writing out your own accomplishments and achievements … your legacy is a great to put into writing for future generations. If also allows you to see what other accomplishments you still can achieve. Love working with flowers and in a garden, between garden clubs and societies and even assisting your hometown with a beautification program in the parks or the roadways is a great legacy. 
After listing your legacy achievements, start with your parents or aunt and uncles and see that they legacy is if it has not be noted yet. You may have many relatives who served as civilians to watch the coastline for German submarines during World War II, or who worked in a ‘war plant’ helping make needed supplies for the soldiers. There were those (especially children) who collected metal cans and other items made of metal for the scrap drives, again to help during World War II. In the 1950s wit the spread of polio, people worked on the March of Dimes to raise money for polio research. A good place to start checking are those hometown newspapers where your relatives lived. Many such listings of those helping the community, not just in war time, but anytime are listed in the newspapers of the 1920s-1970s. 
August, the month to make note of your ancestors’ legacy and especially your own.
Photos: Volunteers at the USO during WW II; children collecting during the scrap metal drives of the 1940s; 1950s- collecting for the March of Dimes; and teacher and students in the 1960s.
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