"There are people who have money and people who are rich." -- Coco Chanel
By the Cohen family's definition, Suffolk Knitting was a success. It employed several thousand people for a dozen years after other mills went South. Thousands of families were able to stay together long enough to find other work.
Nathan Cohen died in 1979. Given his past wealth, he left a modest estate -- a few hundred thousand dollars. But his legacy has paid off handsomely.
For one, it enabled his daughter, Leni Joyce, to build her own textile business with a homey atmosphere reminiscent of her father's mills. She can still literally smell those mills and often awakens in the night, hearing her father's advice: "Whatever you do," he said before he died, "make it beautiful." He wanted to make sure she too stood for something special.
"Try not to become a man of success but a man of value." -- Albert Einstein
Brand Lifeline: Build Your Brand on Deep-Seated Personal Values
"If the things we believe are different than the things we do, there can be no true happiness." -- David O. McKay
At the end of the day, ask yourself: What values governed my day? Are they the values I want to be living? Are they the values I want to be remembered for?
Nathan Cohen was ultimately known for his word -- a word of inclusion and fairness, not of competition or ego. It was a word that shone like gold; you could take it to the bank.
To this day, more than 20 years after his death, I still run into people who knew him, who did business with him. They range from big business executives to independent contractors to the man who ran the local butcher shop..
When they learn that I am his grandson, impromptu, the stories begin. Each is a variation on the same theme: his integrity, his heart, and his talent for buying wool! "Nathan Cohen, your grandfather. Let me tell you what he did for me."
"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove ... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child." -- Simone Weil
To read more about Nathan Cohen, see ML2 E-Newsletter #45. His life story is discussed in Chapter 12, the life story of his daughter, Leni Joyce, of my New York Times best-selling book, Making a Life, Making a Living.
Copyright © 2000 Dr. Mark S. Albion. All rights reserved.
by Mark Albion
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