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Letters
from Robert Baird, Bernard Rapoport,
and Jeannette Fuller Ridgway
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Dear Ralph:
Alice and I are somewhere in the North Atlantic on some fool ship, as you
might put it, headed to Norway. I suppose I have some notion of
understanding human beings more by encountering more of them.
Whatever the truth in that, I do know that my encounter with you changed my
life. Changed Alice’s life, too.
One of my cherished mental images is of a photograph taken in May, 1958, of
Alice and three of her Baylor friends. They were Ralph Lynn “groupies.” In
the picture, they are standing before a poster caricaturing you and
declaring themselves to be “Lynnists.”
For many of your history students, you have been our intellectual mother and
father, giving birth to whatever life of the mind we have been able to
manage.
When I was your student, I could not wait for your class to begin and was
viscerally disappointed when class was over.
I often have tried to figure out why you were such a mesmerizing teacher. I
think it was that you were introducing me for the first time to the world of
ideas.
Some young people enter college trying to discover which ideas are true and
which are false, which ideas are worth pursuing and which not. But some of
us (as the writer Willie Morris says somewhere of himself) enter college and
discover for the first time that there are ideas.
That, I think, is what many of us experienced with you as our teacher.
Ralph, you were the best of teachers. You have been my model. To whatever
extent I have been successful in the classroom, it has been the result of
trying to walk in your path.
When word that you had died reached Alice and me, the loss experienced by
your students and friends across the globe settled on us here, on the cold
North Atlantic Ocean.
I knew, of course, that you were mortal, but with individuals like you, Herb
Reynolds and Ann Miller, people “bigger than life,” your mortality is hard
to accept. In fact, I have the urge to spout clichés about the immortality
of your influence. If I did that, though, I could picture you slapping your
brow or thigh or hitting your head against the wall, and I could hear you
declaring, “I give up!”
What, then, can I say? Thank you, Ralph Lynn, for the gift of yourself.
Robert Baird
_______________________________________
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Greatness is an adjective that is
over-used and is applicable to only
a very small percentage of the
populace.
Indisputably, one who was part of
that very small percentage was Ralph
Lynn.
His passing brings to mind the
magnitude of his contribution to
ameliorating the quality of life of
all — especially as it relates to
our community of Waco.
It is unusual for a town with a
relatively small population to have
within its midst an individual of
his magnitude.
Was he a liberal? Was he a
conservative? The truth is he was
neither. He was simply a man who
looked for justice and decency in
all aspects of life. He was one who
was disappointed because he believed
that we were capable of achieving a
much better society than what we
have.
I know a number of people who went
to Baylor who had Ralph as a
professor.
They know better than anyone how
meaningful that experience was. I
remember Ann Richards who, after she
was elected governor, said to me
that one of the greatest influences
on her life was Ralph Lynn.
His greatness was evident in his
resolute conviction that there was
so much room for improvement in
making the lives of so many
Americans better. And what is even
more special is that he really cared
about this happening.
I’ve been fortunate to know many
university professors in my many
years. I have met few that are
comparable to Ralph Lynn. He is an
irreplaceable treasure. His legacy
forever will be remembered.
Bernard Rapoport
Waco
_______________________________________
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Dr. Ralph Lynn was the only deeply
influential professor that I had as
a student at Baylor. His style of
teaching and his dedication to
intellectual rigor made me realize
that I needed to open my mind and
read intensively in order to
discover how to think clearly.
Although I was shy and backward in
many ways, Dr. Lynn saw a spark of
something appealing in my earnest
attempts to fill the vast emptiness
of my historical knowledge.
In high school in my little
backwater town, I had not been given
much opportunity to hear stimulating
lectures or even to read world
history.
One of my most lasting memories of
Dr. Lynn at Baylor involves his
letter to me replying to my letter
to him about my desire to learn and
to grow as a student.
The dear man walked over to my
dormitory and had the clerk put a
message in my mailbox. As fate would
have it, I was standing in the
reception area when he gave those
instructions to the clerk.
Transfixed with shyness and
amazement, I stood well away from
him where he could not see me. I was
dumbstruck that he would take the
time to do such a considerate thing
for the least of his most
ill-informed students.
Many others in his classes had been
provided with substantial structure
in their earlier experiences in high
school and college, but I had only
my passion to learn from the great
man. Therefore, and thereafter, I
listened to him hungrily in class.
Even now, that vivid memory of his
kindness and concern appears in my
mental landscape from time to time.
Dr. Lynn truly was my hero.
Jeannette Fuller Ridgway
San Diego
Reproduced
with permission of
the
Waco
Tribune-Herald, Copyright 2007
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