The notion of having and knowing your own personal "role model", a real person whose life is a model for my own, has always bothered me. People are human, just like me, and as such they're going to make the same dumb mistakes that I do, no matter how many awards they win or how famous they are or (as an arbitrary example) how well they play golf. Especially nowadays with so many counterexamples in the news, it's hard to find a real person with an exemplary life, someone I can admire unreservedly. Knowing this has kept my personal list of role models, people who figure into my innermost thoughts about my own life and goals and the big-picture critique of who I am and who I want to be, to a very, very few. My grandfather, Dr. Frederick H. Steen, known in our family as "Père", was one of those people.

My brother Drew has put together a wonderful memorial, which lays out many of the amazing factoids of Père's 102 years of life. Like Drew, I can't say that I knew Père all that well, but his life and personality and simple way of being shaped the way I saw myself and my family as I was growing up, and still does.

Above all, Père was the consummate academic. When I was in college, I remember visiting him at his house, already more than a decade past his retirement from the math department at Allegheny College. He was in the midst of reading (or re-reading?) all eleven volumes of the Durants' Story of Civilization. At the end of each chapter, he'd record his own thoughts, and then at the end of a volume he'd re-read his thoughts and summarize them. I was frankly dumbfounded that I was in the midst of paying (a lot) for the privilege of doing exactly what Père did for fun ... and I wasn't doing it nearly as well as he did! His curiosity and mastery and discipline in conquering any area of interest never ceased to amaze me. Our extended family gatherings were always filled with students, teachers and PhDs, but Père was more often that not the most knowledgeable on any topic, and comfortable discussing anything from stump removal to topology. He never "held forth" on subjects; he simply knew a great deal and wanted to know more.

None of that would have mattered as much if it hadn't been for his kind nature and gentle good humor. On our infrequent phone calls, even in the last years of his life, I liked nothing more than to share a laugh with him. One of my favorite memories of Père is of an evening at the dinner table back when I had recently been accepted at Brown, and Mère, my grandmother, was still with us. I was excitedly explaining Brown's 60s-era flexible curriculum and Mère, who was decidely not in favor of flexibility, said, "I would never go to a school that didn't give out grades!" "Well, dear," remarked Père drily (but kindly), "we'll be sure not to enroll you then."

There's no doubt that I'll miss Père, now that he's gone. And I'm sorry that my children won't really know him well; for that matter, I'm sorry that I won't know him as well as I might have. But there's also no doubt that his life and his way of living have influenced me and through me will influence my children, and likely their's someday as well. I'm glad and proud to be a part of his family, and to have had the chance to know and love Dr. Frederick H. Steen, Père, my grandfather and role model.