What will your life mean?

What will be your life’s proudest achievements?

It’s something to consider when one visits Monticello. One not only sees this beautiful setting and familiar architecture, but learns much about Thomas Jefferson, including what he held as his most important achievements.

A perfect day trip is a drive through the Virginia countryside to Monticello, the former home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, Virginia. This spectacular home, with a stunning view of the surrounding rolling hills and fields, has been beautifully preserved and offers a glimpse into the personality and life of Thomas Jefferson, a true renaissance man of his time and the architect for Monticello. Everything was built to his specifications.

What I especially enjoy about visits to historic sites, such as Monticello or anywhere in the world, is what they tell us about the actual people – often the facts and anecdotes that aren’t included in the history studied in school. For example:

• Mr. Jefferson didn’t want a large ostentatious staircase into the foyer of his home so he would not make such a grand entrance when visitors came to call. Instead the very narrow staircase is tucked away discreetly and is entered from an interior hall.
• Mr. Jefferson kept a Farm Book, meticulous records of every plant grown on the farm and person living at Monticello.
• Because of his constant adding-on and renovating his home, when he died, he left his heirs in debt.
• After returning from France and his term as ambassador to France, the influences of architecture he saw in Europe caused him to change his vision for Monticello and tear down much of the completed construction to start over.

One of the stunning things about the person is to learn the things he wanted on his tombstone. And what were the life accomplishments of which he felt proudest and asked to be remembered on his tombstone?

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia.

Few of us can achieve the things that Thomas Jefferson did in his lifetime. But what would you want on your tombstone; what do you want to be remembered for?