{"id":339,"date":"2012-10-25T15:42:54","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T21:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sylvandale.com\/ranch_stories\/?p=339"},"modified":"2012-10-25T15:42:54","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T21:42:54","slug":"maurice-jessup-would-have-been-100-years-old-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":"Maurice Jessup Would Have Been 100 Years Old Today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jessup<\/a>

The Jessups, 1944
“Tillie,” Maurice
Susan, David<\/p><\/div>\n

October 25, 2012<\/p>\n

Our first snow of the season.\u00a0 Wet flakes, barely covering the ground.\u00a0 I woke up, peered out the window and glanced at the date on my watch.\u00a0 With a start, I realized it was my father\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 One-hundred years ago.<\/p>\n

He passed away in 1993 at the age of eighty.\u00a0 A terrible lung fibrosis stilled his great heart.\u00a0 During the nearly twenty years of his long decline, he never complained.\u00a0 He kept plugging away at his dreams and projects at Sylvan Dale, the place he loved, even when he had a hard time moving from his chair to his desk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We still experience the beauty of the place he and my mom developed and nurtured.\u00a0 A great privilege.\u00a0 My sister, Susan, delved into the files and pullout out the \u201cRemembrances\u201d book for his memorial service.\u00a0 I thought I\u2019d share what we wrote about him:<\/p>\n

Our Dad was many things, and one of them was what I call a land sculptor.\u00a0 Where others looked and saw only rocks and swamps and limitations, his eyes saw building stones and lakes and possibilities.\u00a0 He worked with nature to create beauty.\u00a0 He planted trees, pooled water, sculpted the land, and created works of art.\u00a0 Larry McMurtry, the author of Lonesome Dove<\/em>, once wrote an article criticizing the revisionist historians who seek to dismantle the grand myths of the Old West.\u00a0 These historians, McMurtry said, don\u2019t have a clue when it comes to comprehending the spark that inspired the fur trappers, cattle barons, gold kings and simple cowboys and drove them forward despite their failures and hardships\u2014they saw creative possibilities where others could not.\u00a0 In McMurtry\u2019s words, ,\u201dthese people had callings and were sustained by them.\u00a0 Others had only jobs.\u201d\u00a0 Our dad lived his callings and shared them enthusiastically with us.\u00a0 We miss him.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David Jessup<\/strong><\/p>\n

I will never forget the afternoon of May 12.\u00a0 The Sylvan Dale valley was incredibly beautiful clad in a spring robe of lush green sprinkled with the magic of wildflowers.\u00a0 We gathered on the lawn of the J-house facing to the west.\u00a0 The hills of home embraced us as we sat close sharing the memories of our dad\u2014Maurice Jessup, a man who lived his values, patiently endured his long illness, unselfishly gave opportunity to troubled youth, and shared his dream with literally thousands of people.\u00a0 We said good-bye to him that afternoon as his ashes drifted into the Valley from Green Ridge.\u00a0 Our family standing above on the rocky ledge of Echo Rock, our dear friends cradled below at Echo Lake.\u00a0 A few deer stood motionless on the hillside\u2026watching.\u00a0 A meaningful tribute to a man with incredible vision and faith.\u00a0 My dad lived in the present moment, he was a \u201cdoer,\u201d a risk-taker, a dreamer.\u00a0 What he left behind was precious\u2026his vision.\u00a0 My strength comes from my commitment to keep it alive and well.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Susan Jessup<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 25, 2012 Our first snow of the season.\u00a0 Wet flakes, barely covering the ground.\u00a0 I woke up, peered out the window and glanced at the date on my watch.\u00a0 With a start, I realized it was my father\u2019s birthday.\u00a0 One-hundred years ago. He passed away in 1993 at the age of eighty.\u00a0 A terrible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ranch-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidmjessup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}