William Markle
Helping God Repair the World

Braintree Hill residents Bill Markle, a retired Chicago industrialist and philanthropist, and his wife Mary were honored last week by Bethany Church in Randolph with its "Tikkun Olam Award," named for a Jewish precept meaning "healing of the world." After being presented with the award by Rev. Kathy Eddy, Markle, who is Jewish, addressed the congregation with the following reflection on what led him to a life of service to the world.

As I move through the latter portion of my octogenarian years, I become increasingly certain that luck, both good and bad, can have a defining influence on what we will become and the influences we will have as we travel this earthly vale. The year 1927 provided that moment in time when I was seven years old. My father, whom I loved dearly, constantly battled bouts of deep depression. He lost one of those battles and ended his life. My mother, who was pregnant, moved back into her father’s home in an effort to regroup.

My grandfather, Harris Kasden, stepped up to the plate and became my substitute father and an astute mentor in helping me shape some of the important values that would strongly influence the next 80 years of my life.

Harris Kasden was no ordinary man. He was 17 years of age when he and his wife Sarah emigrated from Russia to the United States, settling in New Haven, Conn. His formal European education was cut short by his decision to emigrate and he started supporting himself and his bride as a laborer in a junkyard. Before five years had passed, he started his own business as a peddler which became one of the largest scrap companies in New England, and he became a wealthy man.

He enabled me to have a quality industrial engineering education at Yale University. But what turned out to be of perhaps even greater importance to me was the endless hours of quality time we spent together exploring the things that were really important to get done if we were to improve the interpersonal ways things around us, either moved forward or backward. For these issues he drew deeply on his understanding of Jewish responsibilities and Jewish values. Some of his advice to me was, as he categorized it, just plain common sense.

Like the time after I completed my matriculation at Yale and was getting ready to start my first job. He sat me down and said he wanted to help me adjust the odds that I would do well on my new job. His advice to me was to give my boss a greater effort than what he thought he had a right to expect of me.

Another important lesson Harris Kasden taught me was every person’s responsibility to give of his substance and time to help God repair the world. He served on non-for profit boards and was a "tither beyond tithing." He said that if 100 men came to him and asked for financial help and 99 men fooled him, it was better to be fooled 99 times than let one man who genuinely needed his help go away without it. Many of the organizations which received his help were Jewish; on the other hand, he diligently supported the work of a neighborhood Catholic nunnery of the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor for decades.

Harris Kasden kept many of his philanthropic undertakings "sub rosa." When I was a child I often accompanied him on his evening walks. During the warmer months when we walked past the nunnery and the nuns were out behind the wrought iron fence in front of the nunnery he would stop and chat with them. Invariably he would pass an envelope through the fence.

Many years later, at the time of his death, when I arrived at the funeral home barely in time for the service, I saw a group of nuns standing outside and asked them why they were there. It was only when they told me that Harris Kasden had been a major benefactor of theirs that I made the connection with the envelopes passed through the fence.

He urged me to embrace Tikkun Olam as a priority item in my life’s game plan. He assured me that I would meet quality people of all faiths who were serving as God’s loyal lieutenants in helping repair the world, and that there was much of value to me that I would learn as I worked with them. I have surely found this to be so.

Then there were the vagaries of fate involved with participating in World War II as I made my way from Private to First Lieutenant in four years and four months of active duty with the Army Air Corps, which came to be the Army Air Force. There were so many aspects of what happened to you in the wartime military that you had little if any control over that I decided to focus on what I had control over—and that was giving the boss more than I thought he had a right to expect of me.

So when the Seventh Air Force, which I was serving with, lost its entire A-4 section of its general staff in an airplane which disappeared in the Pacific Ocean and my boss was promoted to head this section, he took me along. I filled a Lieutenant-Colonel’s position as Air Force Chief of Supply even though I was inexperienced and only a First Lieutenant. At age 26, it was one of the biggest jobs I ever had. It gave me an opportunity to serve directly under outstanding general officers, one of whom became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was an opportunity to have leadership skills with great teachers and have the chance to try my hand at learning how to solve major logistical problems at an early age.

Mary and I have made our home in Braintree since 1981. It is the longest time that we have maintained our home in any community. We have been fortunate to have been lovingly accepted into this caring community and to be a useful resource in dealing with issues that needed dealing with.

Having an opportunity to work as a team in using our problem-solving skills has helped maintain our mental agility. On the other hand, I do worry that I might turn into the "punch drunk prizefighter" whose friends didn’t know how to tell him "it was time to hang up the gloves." So as I talk with all of you this morning, I want to receive your assurance that if in your judgment that time has come, you will let me know.

Finally, I congratulate Bethany for its encouragement of Tikkun Olam and its principles close to home and far and wide.