OUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT
We must expect posterity
to view with some asperity
the marvels and the wonders
we're passing on to it;
but it should change its attitude
to one of heartfelt gratitude
when thinking of the blunders
we didn't quite commit.
--Piet Hein
Thanksgiving is a good day to reflect on items for which we have gratitude. Personally, I had been reflecting about experiences where leadership with foundations of courage and ethics mattered in my life, both for good as well as for bad (where neither were observable); I have been thinking, and will argue, that ethics, which should always have a foundational role in our lives, are more important in commercial contexts than ever before. But, that is a topic for another day.
My focus shifted today based on some work assigned to our twelve year-old daughter, Camilla. She was tasked to conduct interviews about her ancestry and prepare to report back to her Sunday School class. Her interview with my dad, Ralf Andreas Thorsen, resulted in the story below. I am happy to share this with you; I am proud of her work (and I was pleased to add photographs.)
The Anker Clocks
By Camilla Thorsen
Imagine it is two hundred years ago. A British ship is sailing in the Hammer waters near Bornholm. The ship is stranded and all the crew members drown in the rough waters. Karl Anker, a man who lives in Bornholm, comes across a clock made of brass. It has washed up on shore and it’s little destroyed, but still assembled enough for Anker to sketch a quick drawing of the mechanics of the clock. He then went home to build three clocks, all very similar to the one he found on the ship. Anker’s son, also named Karl Anker, made a factory for the Ankers to build clocks.
Now we will skip through time to 1883, when William Thorsen was born. He married Thora Vest Thorsen, who gave birth to Holger Thorsen. Holger Thorsen married Mildith Kamilla Hansen Thorsen in 1937. Holger and Mildith bought a big, beautiful farm. In 1940, German Nazis invaded Denmark, and they stayed there for five years. In 1945, Germany collapsed and the world was free of Hitler. Denmark celebrated freedom! But Bornholm wasn’t liberated. Then Karl Anker got information that Russia was planning to bomb cities in Bornholm. Holger and Mildith invited Anker, his wife, and his nine kids to take refuge at their farm just outside the city. Then it happened. On May 11, 1945, Bornholm got bombed by the Russians. The Soviet Army sent in some troops, and they stayed there for one year. Karl Anker was very grateful to Mildith and Holger for caring for his family while the Russians were bombing. Every year on May 11, he sent Mildith blood-red roses to thank her for her help.
Holger and Mildith had a child named Ralf Thorsen in 1947. When Ralf was 14 years old he went to work at Grønbeck for two months, but it wasn’t for him. His father went to Karl Anker and asked if he could find a job for Ralf. Ralf became an apprentice to Anker as a blacksmith, and he worked for four years in that job. Then he came to America in 1974 after finishing his schooling. The day after he got to New Jersey he met Frances Irene Flynn. They got married in 1976, and had a son named Jens Holger Thorsen in 1978. Then in 1980, they had another son named Andreas Holger Thorsen. Ralf began to miss his hometown, so he took Jens, Andreas, and Frances and they went to Denmark over the summer.
They stayed with Mildith, and Ralf took Jens to see where he used to work and to meet Karl Anker. At the time, Anker was 99 and had retired. After his retirement he had built 14 clocks, all hanging in his room. When he met Jens, he liked him a lot, so he decided to bring Ralf and Jens to his house. It was the first time Ralf had ever been in the Anker house, and it was like a castle. Anker let them up steps and steps of stairs until they finally reached the attic. They followed him into a little room, with 14 clocks hanging on the wall. As Jens and Ralf were admiring the clocks on the wall, Anker offered one to them. This was a large surprise because Anker clocks were never given to people outside the family! Ralf was overjoyed, and they accepted. They took it home, proud to have an Anker clock.
In 2006, Jens Thorsen married Rebecca Pangborn, and in 2009 they had a child named Camilla Thorsen. Then in 2013 they had a little boy named Holger Thorsen. I am named after my great-grandmother, Mildith Kamilla Hansen Thorsen. My brother is named after our great-grandfather, Holger Thorsen. The person named Ralf in this story is my grandfather, who I know as FarFar. (FarFar means dad’s dad in Danish. It is pronounced Fa-fa.) Jens is my father, and Frances Irene Flynn Thorsen is my grandmother, who I know as Babci. (Babci means grandmother in Polish. It is pronounced bab-shee.)
The clock Jens and Ralf took home was given to Jens and Becca in 2006. They had to get a wooden case, paint it, and assemble all the pieces, but now it is a beautiful grandfather clock. It is located next to my dining room, and it is one of the last remaining Anker clocks. After Karl Anker retired, his sons were unable to pick up the business. The Ankers had made clocks for 200 years, but no one would ever do it like they did.
Thanks to FarFar for sharing this story with me!!
I think how we view our place into the context of a family is foundational to our personal sense of identity. This perspective informs our views, and consequently nudges our behavior. When I started my career in insurance brokerage and financial advisory, much of my time was invested into seeking out families who had accumulated wealth and attempt to position myself to join the team providing advice and products; For some of the wealthiest families, concerns about estate planning invoked how to support, but not hobble, the next generation. Warren Buffett remarked that he “… wanted his children to inherit enough to do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.”
In seeking techniques to support these activities, I came across a book written by James E. Hughes Jr., Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family. The ideas in this book, which was written for families with levels of financial wealth most of us will never accrue, seemed largely applicable to all families (with some exceptions, of course, like the establishment of Private Trust Companies); One key to success, in Hughes’ view, is to “connect” future generations to the legacy of their lineage.
The Question: Can a family successfully preserve its wealth for more than 100 years or for at least four generations?
The Problem: The history of long-term wealth preservation in families is a catalog of failures epitomized by the proverb, “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”
The Solution: A family can successfully preserve wealth for more than one hundred years if the system of representative governance it creates and practices is founded on a set of shared values that express that family’s “differentness.”
Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family: Page 6
As I sit in my home office listening to Chick Corea, Christian McBride, and Brian Blade, and as I peruse old family photographs, I can’t help thinking about gatherings from the past with our family and the absence of these experiences since the onset of the global pandemic. I am grateful that our kids will get their second dose of vaccine against COVID-19 tomorrow morning so we can return to seeing friends and family. I am so happy Camilla spent this time with my dad to learn a bit about her own family’s legacy and “differentness.” Her story serves as a nice reminder of that “differentness” for me, too. A reminder of where we “fit” in a lineage; I hope (and expect) accounts from future descendants to include commentary about our generations that include accounts of generosity and impact.
I hope you all enjoy a lovely 2021 Thanksgiving!