The R. F. Lairds — Part 1

St. John’s Day School

There were three of us. Robert Fisher Laird, Sr., was a truly great man. A hero who saved many lives. And a man who made many many lives much better. ‘Fisher’ was the name of a lane in Germantown, Philadelphia. Where his father, Samuel Laird racked up a fortune selling women’s shoes. 

His estate at his death was valued, in 1900 dollars, at $3 million. (What’s that today? God only knows…) His will was problematic. He left his fortune to his grandchildren, because he wanted his sons (and two daughters) to earn their own way in this world.

Robert was the second youngest. He was the one chosen to run the company. He demurred. Who was he? Lost his mother at age four. He told me he could see her only in a dream, and only her hand. It came to his son, later, to paint a portrait of the lost Laird mother. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

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Painted by R. f, Laird, Jr.

What did Robert Senior do? He started a a dyeing and finishing company. Sulphur dyes. Innovative and popular. He was immediately successful. Pulling in $50,000 a week. He was 29 years old in 1914. Which is when a German chemist in his employ burned the dyeing plant to the ground. 

What did he do? He promised to pay back all the people who had lost money in his company. He kept that promise. It took him 50 years, but he paid them all back.

He was a chemist. Had wanted to be a physician, but his brother John already was one. So he went another way. Robert Senior was a graduate of Philadelphia’s Central High School, which meant he had a baccalaureate degree at the age of 18. Then he went to the University of Pennsylvania for chemistry. Why he became a shining star at the duPont Company. Where he worked for many many years.

There came a day, though, where something went wrong at the Chambers Works in New Jersey. Lead ethyl was leaking. It’s a completely fatal gas. Robert Senior ordered every employee out and went in himself to turn off the tap. By the time he got home he was raving. That’s how it took you. Instant insanity. He got a gun, was waving it in the closet, and his wife did the only thing possible. Call John Laird.

Wow. Family mythology. My great Uncle John got to Salem from Philadelphia somehow in his Auburn Speedster in 45 minutes and saved my grandfather’s life.

Then the man I came to know as Boppa became a man everyone came to love. I knew him because my sister had eye trouble and they stashed me with him while she went to see the eye doctor. He taught me about chess. “Dumb game. Just know the moves. Lose gracefully and always knock over your own King.”

Best advice I ever got in the pseudo-intellectual set. Thing is, he could still Greek at 80.

Medical science killed him. They x-rayed his back when he was suspected of having skin cancer on his back. Radiologist left him under the x-ray too long, way too long, and he was left with an open wound he’d have to deal with every day from age 65 to when he died at 82. Every single day. It had to be dressed and made white with bandages. Every single day.

He forgave the man who did it.

Then he started St. John’s Day School. Which made my life bountiful. 

He did the whole thing. Got the Episcopal Church in Salem to sponsor a school. Got Francis Lyman Hine and John Seabrook to underwrite it, and had it up and running in time for me and my sister to attend first grade in the St. John’s Parish house.

I graduated from St. John’s after eighth grade. Then I went to Mercersburg Academy. Where R. F. Laird, Jr., had insisted I go. That would be Part 2.