Executive Message

Leaving a Legacy

What Freemasonry gives us,
we give our children.

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They say that you can measure your success as a parent by the success of your children. And by that standard, I’m proud to say I’ve been an exceedingly successful dad.

In celebration of the centennial of Job’s Daughters International, this issue of California Freemason is dedicated to the special relationship between fathers and daughters—something I know well, thanks to my two girls, Jennifer and Annie. And while Freemasonry is usually thought of as something that’s passed down from grandfathers to fathers to sons, its lessons are just as valuable to dads and daughters. Masonry teaches us about practicing compassion, empathy, and self-discipline. About patience and kindness and honesty. Those are important concepts for everyone, including for the young girls we aim to raise into strong women.

Jennifer and Annie are in their thirties now. But they were already teenagers when I joined the craft, well on their way to high school and then college and then careers and families of their own. Kids that age are intuitive—more than most people give them credit for being. They have a special ability to spot the differences between their parents’ actions and their words. They learn far more by observing the way adults interact with one another than they do from all the lectures and moralizing in the world. So while Masonry gave me a framework for understanding ethics and virtues, it was my daughters who showed me the importance of truly living them out.

I’ve tried to impart to my girls what I’ve learned through Freemasonry about respect and trustworthiness. But it’s by exemplifying those values that we really pass them along—and in so doing, help spread them throughout the world.

John E. Trauner
Grand Master

California Masonry: Rooted in the Gold Country, Forged in Ideals

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