My sister came across something the other day from our past.  She came across a letter that was written to announce my father, Ralph Siegel’s bid for candidacy for a spot on the school board in either 1968 or 1969 in Long Island, NY. Seems mild enough. But when you consider the words coming from a WWII veteran who survived 50 missions in Europe and had seen the atrocities of war first hand, all he ever wanted was a better world in which to raise a family. With that he decided to get involved with his community. My father was no hippie as his statement of qualifications will testify, but he was progressive in his own way.  He was an independent thinker outside of the mainstream and he liked it that way. As a kid I was proud to see his name placed first on a plaque in my elementary school as the PTA President. He must be important I thought back then. His name is engraved in shiny brass, it says so right there.

So here I am, 40 years later and reading this letter composed when I was around five years old. Three things really stand out to me.  First, issues we have wrestled with as a society for years continue to plague us and secondly, that it takes passionate people to bring about change even if we live in a world that moves as slow as molasses. Thirdly, there is a direct and clear component in his words. While the first part of the letter is about his background, the second part concisely emphasizes teaching the children of tomorrow to care for their environment as a matter of absolute necessity.  There’s no bi-partisan politics in it, it is simple and direct. With all the media, news and political rhetoric out there these days, I couldn’t help but find his letter so refreshing in tone, and ironically so timely in its content. My old man has always been a tough act to follow.

“I am running for School Board because I believe that more of the Board’s energies must be directed toward initiating a curriculum that will prepare the children of this district to cope with the problems they and we will face in the next 10 years. I would like to see marine biology and ecological sciences in the curriculum so that we can teach our children how to take care of their environment before it is too late to do so.”

Letter scanned in from original onion paper. The date is 1968 or 1969 before the first Earth Day. He would serve two terms on the school board.

Jennie, remember to tell ‘em these vegetables are organic and they can’t buy ‘em in the stores.” My father, Ralph Siegel was well ahead of his time. As kid in the 70s, I didn’t really understand the consequence of what he was saying. We just knew Dad didn’t use pesticides and that he was crazy about something called “organic gardening.” He grew way more than we could possibly eat and if I helped pick the countless rows of string beans, I could sell some veggies and keep part of the profits. I was a door-to-door-10-year-old-organic-vegetable-salesgirl with a wagon filled with zucchini, peppers, tomatoes and orange, acid-free tomatoes he told me to charge an extra dime for. I dragged my cart around our Northport, Long Island neighborhood, heading first to the Italian ladies who would always buy the most and lighten my load sooner.

Dad was a gardening fanatic. He grew up in Staten Island and studied forestry at Penn State Forestry School before enlisting and later becoming a bombardier in WWII. Though he never got to be a forester, he was happiest when he was in his garden. He also had a crazy sense of humor. “C’mon kiddo, let’s take a drive to the stables and pet the horses,” Dad would say. It wasn’t until I spied the tarp and shovels in the back of our station wagon that I’d realize we were going to haul manure. Free manure was Dad’s idea of a lottery jackpot. When we’d arrive home, he’d drive the car across the lawn, stopping here and there to shovel out our winnings. Later, he’d rototill it into the garden. Our big collie was notorious for rolling in it. Between the dog and the car, the smell stayed with us for days. Needless to say, I was horrified whenever Dad offered to drive my girlfriends and I anywhere.

Manure was one thing. The compost pile was another. It was six-feet wide and four-feet deep. Coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels and all sorts of biodegradable materials ended up there. Dad often found snakes there and knew how to handle them. My siblings and I still remember the day he found two, four-foot milk snakes in the compost and wrapped them around his hands—to our delight and my mother’s horror. As I got older, the compost pit became the place where he tested the mettle of any college boyfriend by asking them, nonchalantly, to help him with the “little” task of shoveling it out. Years later, my now husband Bob, more than passed the test when instead of turning compost, he took down a dead tree for Dad with a pathetic electric chainsaw. Afterwards, Dad pulled me aside and lectured, “Jennie, don’t screw this one up.”

But the garden was only part of our upbringing. My sister, Margo, took care of geese and from time to time, we’d enjoy fresh eggs. My folks were early adopters who put solar panels on their roof, reaping the benefits of it years later in energy savings. And of course, we always recycled.

Dad’s belief in good ethics and reusing natural resources resonates through my family still. Margo is a professional environmentalist and spends her days preserving land and parks. My brother Jeff, while more notable in his earlier years for mowing over Dad’s smaller plantings, became a Marine Corps Captain and went on to create an estate and guardianship planning business, often helping families when little or no resources exist. As for my husband and I, we have turned our property on Whidbey Island into a Stewardship Forest and our businesses are focused on promoting environmentally-friendly and socially responsible clients.

A week before his passing, befittingly on Arbor Day 2006, Dad and I spent a day dividing and planting over thirty hosta rhizomes in my parent’s backyard. I think of his legacy just like a rhizome—a horizontal stem of appreciation for the earth, that continues to extend its roots, underground, slowly and tenaciously. To date, over 200 trees have been planted or donated in his honor. Most by friends and family. Most of them in suburbia to be enjoyed by generations to come. Ralph’s lessons were big, but his impact was greater.

Jen Pennington is CEO and Creative Director for Rhizome Design.