‘The Oaks’-Booker T. Washington (November 10, 1915)

“[New York City Nov. 10, 1915] [To Alexander Robert Stewart] Be sure my yard is well cleaned.” – Booker T. Washington

In all likelihood, this November 10, 1915 letter from Booker T. Washington to Alexander Robert Stewart was the final letter written by the eminent founding principal and president of Tuskegee Institute (University). (For Booker T. Washington died on Sunday morning November 14, 1915-not 5 days later-after requesting to return to Tuskegee, Alabama to spend his final days.) Mr. Stewart, a 1904 graduate of Tuskegee Institute and described as his “faithful agent,” had not only been Mr. Washington’s personal agent managing all of his personal business and financial affairs since 1906, he was the 11th ordered beneficiary named in Mr. Washington’s “Last Will and Testament” in the amount of $200. (This was executed on May 25, 1909 and a codicil was added on June 13, 1911.)

Until his death, Mr. Washington wrote several short letters with instructions to his colleagues in Tuskegee with the above being the last one that is recorded in all of his published correspondence: “Be sure my yard is well cleaned.” While one may regard this final communiqué as someone who regarded his yard more important than his soul, this is not so. For this final epistle was a reflection of his soul indeed-a soul devoted to the very end to his vocation (calling).

Tales abound in the Tuskegee community about Mr. Washington’s intense devotion to work, and there is no greater joy for a man or woman than to be engaged in a line of work that honors both the souls of men and their own. Mr. Washington spent countless hours in the yard and in the garden working, when time and travels permitted. Mr. Washington took great pride in the now world-renowned “Oaks,”-the president’s home at the time, located on the Tuskegee University campus, the only national park on a fully functioning college campus.

Annually, thousands of visitors trek across the nation and the world to visit the home site of Tuskegee’s founding principal and president now maintained by the National Parks Service. So perhaps Mr. Washington’s final concern for his yard being cleaned was not only for that generation but also for the many future generations that would follow in the 110 years since his death. All the same, if it could be said of anyone who lived to fulfilled a lifelong vocation (calling), it might certainly be said of Booker T. Washington: For careers fill pockets; callings fulfill people; careers linked to callings fulfill great purposes for people.