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Fred Morgan Kirby II, right, with his wife Alice and retailer Al Boscov, gave generously to this community.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
DISHONORABLE, greedy men stole the headlines this week, but it’s good to remember they are the exception. There are plenty of principled men and women worth our admiration.
Unfortunately this area lost a good man and friend with the death on Tuesday of Fred Morgan Kirby II at the age of 91. A native son of Wilkes-Barre, Kirby lived most of his long life away from the city but he never forgot from where he and his family came. His grandfather and namesake, Fred M. Kirby, expanded a modest five-and-dime store on East Market Street in Wilkes-Barre into an empire and a fortune. The Kirby family shared its wealth with gifts to this community that have endured for generations – Kirby Park, the Kirby Health Center and Kirby Hall in Wilkes-Barre and the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library and the Kirby Episcopal House in the Mountain Top area.
The Kirby family continued giving even though none of its members lived here. Numerous organizations each year received donations from the Kirby Foundation.
That did not go unnoticed in 1986 when a new performing arts center was being planned for Public Square in Wilkes-Barre. In the months before the theater opened, Al Boscov, the retailer, entrepreneur and champion of the civic center project, campaigned through the community to raise money. “I discovered one family which had physically left the community almost 50 years ago who had left its heart behind,” Boscov is quoted in a press release issued in the weeks before the theater opened. “The Kirby Family and especially Fred M. Kirby II have time after time overwhelmed this community with its generosity.”
The board of directors of the arts center authorized Boscov to approach Kirby to ask if the theater could be named for him.
“I was instructed that I was NOT to ask Mr. Kirby for a donation but to make this offer based in a way that this area could show its appreciation for the unique concern for the area that the Kirbys have had.”
At the same time, Kirby offered donations of $400,000 to the project with no expectation of seeing his family’s name on the marquee.
“The grant to which I am committed is irrespective of the naming of the theatre,” wrote Kirby in a letter dated Sept. 1, 1986, and sent to The Times Leader. It was a distinction important enough to Kirby that he took the time to write the letter in longhand from a camp in the Adirondacks.
The naming of the theater was offered with no expectation; the money was offered with none. The community has a wonderful theater, almost 25 years later, and an institution that honors a generous family.
The point? Some people – dishonorable, greedy men and women – expect to take as much as they can. That hurts the community.
Thank goodness there are many more principled people – the great majority – who give as much as they can. They give as philanthropists, yes, but also as volunteers, as neighbors and as business owners. They provide the example to follow. They are the people who can build this into a better place in which to work and live. If there is any hope beyond the ignominious headlines, it is with people who are willing to give only with the expectation to make this a better place.
A native son of Wilkes-Barre, Kirby lived most of his long life away from the city but he never forgot from where he and his family came.