Alvah H. Chapman, Jr. Eulogy by Alberto Ibargüen
Coral Gables, 9 December 2008
I think today of Thomas Merton’s axiom that you cannot be at peace with others if you are not at peace with yourself; and you cannot be at peace with yourself if you are not at peace with God.
It is a blessing to know – in our hearts and in our minds – that Alvah was at peace with us because he was at peace with himself; and he was at peace with himself because he was at peace with God. Just a few days ago, he told Betty the good news that he thought the Lord would gift him Paradise for Christmas. And, of course, it was on Christmas day that Alvah left us for God.
When Betty told me that I smiled because it was just so like Alvah to die on his own schedule, on time, leaving instructions for the rest of us, even including about this afternoon’s memorial service!
We’ve known for years that this day would come, but it’s still hard to imagine because even in the face of increasingly diminished physical capacity, this proud and independent man continued to serve as if he were going to be here forever.
But indeed, he’s gone.
We have only just begun to miss Alvah Chapman. Let us resolve to miss him more. For the less we remember, the more we lose. And unless we weigh, and continue to weigh, the meaning of his full and dedicated life, we shall have lost a golden opportunity to learn about living and about how to live.
Each of us has his or her stock of Alvah memories. One of my earliest includes seeing him and Betty dance at a black tie gala and another is of Alvah and Betty at her birthday party some years ago. I think these stand out in my memory because he was so often seen and talked about as a serious man – a man of power and action, a disciplined man and a tough, demanding corporate chief – all of which he was. But he was also playful and loving and inviting and I will always count it among the blessings of my life that he decided to bring me into his orbit.
He taught me. He nurtured me. And he demanded of me. He gave me his advice and his opinion about the Herald, business and editorial. He was never shy about what he thought and always supportive of what we did.
When the opportunity came to head Knight Foundation, of course, I sought and received his advice and thoughtful counsel.
Alvah had served and helped to lead the foundation for 31 years. During that time, he had a hand in virtually every critical decision at Knight Foundation and in the disbursement of hundreds of millions of dollars to journalism programs and to good works in communities where Jack and Jim Knight, and Alvah, too, had run their newspapers. My colleagues at the foundation remember him as committed and uncompromising in values and ethics, an authentic, enlightened Southern gentleman who gave and received respect.
Dr. Gerald Austen, our board chair, served with Alvah as trustees and remembers that Alvah served at Knight Foundation as he served everywhere, as a no-nonsense leader; smart, direct, honorable and with an enormous sense of duty.
The foundation mattered to him because he believed that to those to whom much is given, much is expected. The foundation was not a substitute for personal charity or personal effort, but it was complementary to a life dedicated to community action. It was also, and frankly, a great way to enhance the image and values of Knight Newspapers and, later, Knight Ridder Newspapers. He was quite plain about that and thought it right.
Alvah was a community builder and so the foundation’s capacity to do not just good but to transform community was compellingly attractive to him. He understood that institutional philanthropy, on a larger scale, is not only charity, though he would never denigrate charity. He understood that there is an additional obligation to leverage funds, to seek sustainability and partners for the common, long-term good of the community; in effect, to invest in social change as one might invest in other risk/reward ventures, just for community benefit, not for personal profit.
As the foundation changed with the times, his role changed, passing from active leader to supporter of change to stay relevant and change to continue to serve in the most effective ways. Alvah supported Creed Black’s vision and Hodding Carter’s, both presidents of the foundation as asset growth allowed it to expand in concept and programs.
Nothing so became this modest man with huge ambition than the humble way in which he conducted his business in retirement. In his day, he was the most powerful man in town. In his latter years, without his corporate base, he retained the moral authority of leadership by his actions and his principles. We are all the better for that fact and for that example.
I want to end these brief remarks with two Alvah stories…actually, one Alvah story and one Betty Chapman story.
The first is about Betty. When El Nuevo Herald won the Ortega y Gasset prize, I returned a call from Alvah and Betty answered the phone. “Betty?” I said. “Yeaas,” she responded, in that Macon, Georgia accent I wish I could imitate. She congratulated me on our award, the highest in Spanish-language journalism, and said she had told Alvah that “If Knight Ridder owns the best Spanish-language newspaper in the world, then maybe we ought to learn to speak Spanish.” I asked what his response had been and she said, “Betty, I think our Spanish learnin’ days are over!”
That is Betty Chapman: a gentle but indomitable spirit of optimism and hope for better. That is the spirit that has guided her as she moved in her life with Alvah from partner to care giver, a role he acknowledged openly, publicly and with gratitude.
Betty, there isn’t anyone here who doesn’t know that you and Alvah were in love with each other for every day we’ve ever known you. I read that, when you told him you’d marry him, what you actually said is that you wanted to do what he wanted to do. I hope that you know that what he would want now is for you to continue being inspiration and role model, as important to us as he was.
My second story is from last year when Alvah called and said he wanted Armando Codina and me to lead an effort to spread the word and the work of Miami’s Community Partnership for the Homeless to other cities. CPH has a great business model that could be adapted to other places. Alvah thought Armando and I should take that on.
Of course, we did and thanks to Dan Vincent and Al Brown and many others, I’m proud to tell you that many cities have been looking at CPH as they try to understand and cope with their own homeless issues. And it is not coincidental that Knight Foundation recently made a substantial grant in Columbia, South Carolina to purchase property where they will build and operate their version of CPH.
As Alvah called meeting after meeting on this new venture, sometimes at his apartment, sometimes at CPH, Armando and I would arrange our schedules to make it work. At one point, I laughed and told him, “Alvah, you’re still calling the shots and making Armando and me and everyone else change our priorities to work on your project.” “Oh, no,” he replied in that soft voice he had toward the end. “I don’t mean to change your priorities. But I did pray on this and helped you see your own true priorities.”
For three decades, he used Knight Foundation as a kind of bridge as he evolved from corporate leader to community activist. I found Alvah to be the very definition of transformational leadership, defined as guiding people to look inward so they might discover power in the deep connection of everyone with each other and, helping them to tap that place where power is not power over someone, but rather power to unleash collective creativity, inventing a new – and hopefully better – society.
Let us resolve to miss him more. Let us resolve to remember him actively. Let us resolve to let that memory guide us as we seek to be better and to understand and act on our own true priorities.