It has been said “There are three things to leave behind: Your photographs, your library and your personal journals. These things are certainly going to be more valuable to future generations than your furniture!”

In my career as an estate planning attorney, I got to learn about some valuable transfers on a persons death. Some were unusual, like a 1908 Maytag automobile. I hadn’t even know that Maytag made an automobile.

One of my clients had accrued during his lifetime several, and I mean like numbered in the 20’s, of Beethoven’s original musical scores. The originals. He even showed me some. He left his collection upon his death to his Alma Mater, a California University. What a legacy.

One of my clients just loved Abraham Lincoln. I have always been more of a Founding Fathers man myself. I have a nice library about many of the Founding Fathers. But I had some interest in Abraham Lincoln as well. It so happened that this particular client admired my collection of books. So he decided to leave me his library about Abraham Lincoln. When he passed away a few years ago, I brought his collection of books home.

Now I have more books about Abraham Lincoln than I do about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and James Madison combined! I have now read a couple. But guess I’d better start reading them seriously.

“What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the knowledge that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?”
–Oliver Wendell Holmes.