Jim Graf

I first met Jim Graf in the days when the mass was spoken in Latin every day and Catholics ate fish on Fridays. Although still a student himself, he took a job as one of the original teachers at Wichita Collegiate School where he taught Latin to a handful of others, but, more importantly, instilled in them his youthful but enduring love for words and books ... a love which never aged as it continuously reshaped his and their lives ... forever. I know, for I was one of his first and his last students.

Time would fail before I could tell you all we shared over the years from Gaius Julius Caesar's De Bello Galico to Henri Nouwen's Reaching Out to Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary which I recently bought at Eighth Day Books with the Christmas present gift certificate Jim gave us last year. Jim's gift to us was always the same ... a book he loved or a gift certificate to find one we could love and share with him.

When he retired from work, Jim volunteered at Northfield School of the Liberal Arts where he once again taught the Latin he loved to young students who learned to love Latin through him. It was a contagious affair for everyone!

Jim lived out the words of the 2nd century Roman physician, Galen, who authored the first western medical text books [which served students for a millenium] when he said:

"I judge it to be piety, not to sacrifice many hecatombs of bulls to God the Founder and to burn incense of innumerable perfumes and cassia, but first to learn myself, and afterwards to teach others too, how great He is in wisdom, how great in power, and of what sort in goodness."

Jim will be missed by everyone who knew him ... especially his large and wonderful family. He was a learner and a teacher at all times. Perhaps, the most fitting memorial I can offer him was one I received from another Latin teacher I once knew [also a Catholic] who gave me a large and marvelous hand-drawn streetmap of the Vatican and Three Rules for the Teacher:

1. Nemo dat quod no habet. [No one gives what he does not have.]

2. Quidquid recipietur recipietur secundum modum recipientis. [Whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.]

3. Esto bono animo! [Be of good cheer!]

Thank you Jim !!
your student & friend, Bob Love

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Hear from Jim in his own words about how important reading was to him.
Dear Friends, Read to Lead.

Memorials to Jim can be made as tax deductible contributions to Northfield School earmarked to continue the work at Sunnydale Community Library where people from all walks of life are joining together to rekindle and spread the love of reading books which characterized Jim all his life and which he shared faithfully with everyone with whom he came into contact. Read to lead, to live and to learn.