Legacy of an Optimistic Mama
This past Friday Ray and I, along with our co-worker Donna, toured the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. There we interviewed Anthony Pennay, the library’s Chief Learning Officer, in order to make a video in our continuing series of Notgrass History Takes You There episodes.
The library displays many quotes of Ronald Reagan’s hopeful encouragements. The first one visitors see is this:
America’s best days are yet to come.
Our proudest moments are yet to be.
Our most glorious achievements are just ahead.
Ronald Reagan learned his trademark optimism in his childhood home. He said:
The Reagans . . . had little in material terms, but we were emotionally wealthy beyond imagination . . . young people in a young land with the best days ahead.
Reagan once described his mother like this:
Nelle was quite a remarkable woman — tiny in stature but with enormous optimism and a huge heart.
Reagan’s home was not perfect (no one’s is). His father, Jack Reagan, was an alcoholic, but still he taught his sons valuable lessons. Reagan once said:
There was no more grievous sin at our household than a racial slur or other evidence of racial intolerance.
Once when Jack was on a sales trip, someone told him that he would like a certain hotel because it did not accept Jews. Mr. Reagan was so offended that he spent that night in his car. Much later, a local hotel wouldn’t allow two African Americans on Ronald’s college football team to stay at their facility. Ronald Reagan took them home to his parents’ house. He knew they would be welcome there.
Nelle Reagan was a devout Christian. Both times when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as governor of California and both times when he took the oath of office as President of the United States, he placed his hand on his mother’s well-worn Bible. Today it is on display behind bullet-proof glass at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
Nelle Reagan taught her son to love and respect the Bible. At the National Prayer Breakfast in 1983, President Reagan declared 1983 as the Year of the Bible. He said:
Inside its pages lie all the answers to all the problems man has ever known.
Nelle Reagan’s Bible has always been in the possession of the Reagan family or of the Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, except for just one time. The Bible was safe and sound in its case at the library when we were there last week, but in January of 2017, at the special request of Vice President-elect Mike Pence, former Reagan aide Andrew Littlefair took it to Washington, D.C. Littlefair is now a member of the Reagan Foundation. The Bible was held in a safe in the Senate, until it was used on Inauguration Day.
On January 20, 2017, Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas held the Bible open to 2 Chronicles 7:14, while Pence took the oath to become Vice President of the United States. Pence laid his hand on these words:
. . . [If] My people who are called by My name
humble themselves and pray and seek My face
and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven,
will forgive their sin
and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
Hope to visit there one day!
I don’t know why, but this post just made me cry. Maybe it’s the affirmation that despite the state of the world today, God still places godly men in positions of influence, and He is still so very sovereign. It’s overwhelming sometimes to see His great love for His children, and to know that we are never alone.