Geno Morlacci set an example for all to follow

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 5, 2004 | by Jay Evensen Deseret Morning News

What was it that Genesio Morlacci had that so many of the rest of us seem to lack? Why is it we marvel over his story without, generally speaking, taking many steps toward making it our own story, too?

Morlacci was the subject of several news accounts a couple of weeks ago, even though he, unfortunately, passed on in October at the age of 102. He's the humble dry cleaning operator and part-time janitor who managed, somehow, to save up enough to will $2.3 million to the University of Great Falls in Montana. It was the largest single donation ever received by the institution, which is made even more remarkable by the fact that Morlacci himself never achieved more than a third-grade education.

Why did he do this?

That, by the way, is a better question than asking how he did it. That one is pretty easy. He lived on less than he earned, consistently and without fail. His former attorney was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, "He was a fellow who felt that if you didn't need it, you shouldn't buy it." He also said Morlacci was the kind of person who would remove frayed collars from his shirts, turn them upside down and sew them on again to make the whole package look newer.

He sounds like the kind of person who was generous with friends, asking them jovially how many miles of spaghetti they wanted when he had them over to eat. But when he took his wife out to dinner, he generally sought out low-priced restaurants. They don't sound like the kind of couple that made entertainment a high priority, or that had to have the latest electronic gizmos or the fanciest cars.

But why did he do it?

A lot of us like to examine cases like these the way we examine defendants at a high-profile trial. That is, we look for differences. We look for reasons why we would never end up murdering our families like the mild-mannered husband who everyone thought was so kind, and we look for reasons why we could never end up accumulating millions like the humble dry cleaning operator. We figure if we have to be eccentric and a little crazy, like Howard Hughes, we'd rather instead be relatively sane and live from paycheck to paycheck.

And if we have to rip our shirt collars off and turn them around every six months or so . . . well, let's not be ridiculous. We'll keep the credit cards warm and stay in fashion.

I, for one, was comforted to know that Morlacci and his wife didn't have any children. I'd be a millionaire, too, without teenagers. But then, like most of you, I probably make a lot more than Morlacci did cleaning clothes 18 hours a day.

That's a lot easier than looking at why he did it.

It's easier, that is, until we confront the messy truth. We could leave just as much money to the school of our choice and still live comfortably and stylishly before we die. We don't like to confront figures such as these published last month by the Minneapolis Star- Tribune: Since 1998, Americans have taken out more than $500 billion in home equity loans, used up more than $50 billion in the tax rebates that were supposed to stimulate the economy and charged $137 billion more to credit cards that already had a sizable balance to begin with. Nor do we like to look at the nation's paltry savings rate.

When President Bush asked us all to do our patriotic duty and shop after 9/11, most of us saluted and carried out the order like good soldiers. It was tough duty.

But it doesn't explain why Morlacci did what he did.

The answer to that question can be painful. It has to do with values. It goes to the heart of who we are and what we treasure.

Morlacci may have had some eccentricities that most of us can't understand, but in his core he valued education, as a general concept, at least as much as he valued his own comfort. And he had the foresight to see that he had a choice. He could pay for few people to attend school as money became available, or he could save enough, as he did, to allow the university to fund several scholarships a year for as long as anyone can see. He had a rational plan, and he stuck to it.

If we confront the question of why Morlacci did what he did, we have to examine what it is we really value as much as ourselves, and then we have to look at what we're doing about it.

Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com