Prairie City Landing resident who cares for his community, Leonard.
In the early 20th century, Elbert Hubbard wrote, “The love we give away is the love we keep.”
That phrase kept running through my mind as I spoke with Leonard, a resident at Prairie City Landing, a senior living community in Folsom, California.
My first impression of Leonard, sharply dressed in a shirt and tie, was that he was a thinker. He paused thoughtfully before answering my questions, carefully choosing his words. Leonard pays close attention to detail. However, to assume that Leonard exists only in his mind would be quite mistaken. He is also someone who deeply cares for others. His careers—all four of them—show how Leonard prioritizes caring for others.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Leonard graduated from Kalamazoo College. While medicine interested him, he chose to study chemistry, graduating with a PhD. Soon, he was standing in front of the classroom lecturing where he had been a student just years before.
Leonard loved chemistry and teaching. He developed a chemical that increased one’s susceptibility to sunlight, and the proceeds from that development funded scholarships for students at Kalamazoo.
Before Leonard became a professor, he did some post-graduate work at the University of Liverpool in England. It was there that his life took an unexpected turn. “Falling in love with my landlady, and vice-versa, that was not planned,” Leonard laughed at the serendipity of it. And yet that chance meeting changed everything.
Leonard came back to teach, and his wife June and her children followed. At one point, June asked him what he dreamt of doing as a child. His answer: being a doctor.
“Why aren’t you?” she asked. Leonard explained that back then, medical schools only graduated half of their class, regardless of proficiency. “So 50% graduate and 50% were tasked with huge college bills for four years and no job,” Leonard recalled. That practice had changed over time, and with June’s encouragement and support, Leonard went back to school. His wife got a job to support them as Leonard chased his dream.
Practicing family medicine lived up to Leonard’s childhood dream. He loved helping people, supporting them through challenges, and even welcoming them into this world. It was perhaps the last part that was the most taxing. Leonard would be up all night delivering babies and then show up at 7 am to do hospital rounds. The care he provided his patients was too important not to be at his best, and after many years of practicing, he worried the constant demands of the job and lack of sleep might impact his patients.
His family, once again, was the impetus for his next career. June’s daughter was an attorney who worked on cases at the United States Government’s federal vaccine court. Leonard consulted on cases, reviewing the medical records of patients who had been injured or, in rare cases, died from a vaccine to determine if the vaccine posed a danger to others. Leonard’s stepdaughter would take his summary and present the evidence to the court.
Leonard is a caring soul with a big heart. He helped students through both teaching and supporting them financially with scholarships. He supported his patients through medical issues and concerns. He defended those who had been harmed. Leonard’s entire career had been focused on caring for others—the love he gave away.
His last career, though, illustrates the selflessness of Leonard’s heart. “My fourth career was taking care of my wife. She had developed a series of cancers and was given two years to live,” Leonard said. With his attentive care, those two years stretched to ten. “It was never long enough,” Leonard remembered.
When I suggested that June had the best caregiver, Leonard responded, “Well, she was the best wife.” Leonard acknowledged that he couldn’t have done much of what he did without her. The beauty and love of their partnership seem to extend to the beauty and care Leonard both finds and creates in the world.
Leonard exercises outside every day, stopping by the front reception desk on his way out to say hello, ask about the receptionist’s day. He visits with friends over meals and shares smiles as he passes them in the hallway. Leonard seems to radiate care. It is the love he and his wife shared, still very much alive. As Hubbard wrote, that love is the only love we get to keep.
Come experience the love in our community for yourself! Our Counselors invite you to schedule a tour of Prairie City Landing.
Curious to learn more? Find answers to your questions in our latest guide, FAQS: Answers to Your Questions from the People Who Make Tenfold Communities Amazing.
