“If good people don’t step up, others will.” – Harley Kingsbury
When I reflect upon it, I credit my primary foundation in understanding what it means to be a good leader, a call to public service, an unrelenting work ethic and core values of faith, family and hospitality to being a Kingsbury. For anyone who knows my family, these things aren’t considered to be unusual at all, they are an expectation.
The third daughter of a 6th-generation farmer, I was born into a large, tight-knit and devoted family. As the story goes, my parents were on route to a Fourth of July Parade in Neche, ND (population of 371, 2010 census) where my mom was to ride in a horse-drawn carriage alongside her beloved uncle, but on July 2nd – I came early.
As life would have it, about 3 decades later my daughter, Natalie, was born on July 4th and my son, Zachary, was born 3-years and a few days after that on July 8th. My husband and I were given the option to induce Zachary earlier, but having both kids born on the Fourth of July just felt weird and we wanted them each to have their own birthdays. As a hospital executive, I also factored in the safety element of having a skeleton crew on a holiday weekend vs. waiting until Monday morning.
Each year, the first week of July, we ceremoniously hang red, white and blue buntings out the four street-facing windows of my home and declare Birthday Week a rolling holiday. My husband likes to chide me that it looks as if someone in the household is running for public office, to which I retort “don’t tempt me.”
The day I was born, my father called his brothers and sisters to let them know “Mary Roxey” had arrived. Apparently, there were more than one of his siblings that responded to this assuming another distant relative was in town visiting for the holiday weekend. The Kingsbury collective mindset is “the more the merrier” and everyone “is family” no matter how distant the relation, nor how often you get to see one another.
Yes, my middle name is Roxey(!). Named for two of my great-grandmothers, I have always had a little bit of a love-hate relationship with it. Like a secret alias, I attribute my spunky, sassy-side to the “Roxey” dimension of my personality. I probably embraced it most when I was at the height of my singing and acting career in the performing arts community. When printed on official documents, like a diploma, or announced at graduation, I got a lot of “Is ‘Roxey’ really your middle name?” over the years. I sheepishly nodded and quickly tried to change the subject.
Now that I’m older, my maiden name of Kingsbury means so much to me -grounding me in where I’ve come from, my core values and connecting me to the people who loved me first – that I use it as my middle name.
I recently heard the song, Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town by Miranda Lambert on a country music-themed Peloton ride and it made me laugh out loud. The lyrics explained that “Whether you’re late for church or you’re stuck in jail…Hey, word’s gonna get around.” Yeah, that’s pretty accurate!
Growing up in a small town, in a community where our family were decently prominent farmers, as well as long-standing public servants in the State Legislature – there was strict accountability to your behavior. People I didn’t even know, knew “I was a Kingsbury”. They knew my parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and you better believe that if I did something inappropriate that I’d hear about it.
I remember my grandfather, Harley Kingsbury, would read the local newspaper and listen to the police scanner on a daily basis. When I’d go over to his house after school in high school, he’d occasionally ask me about a classmate that had gotten speeding tickets or worse. I remember when I first moved to Brooklyn after college, I have a vivid memory of the day I realized I could go to the corner bodega in my pajamas and no one would notice or think twice about it. The anonymity inherent in a big city was shocking to me.
Needless to say, all of my siblings and I walked the straight and narrow path growing up as good students and more importantly, “good kids”. Yes, there was a touch of fear of letting grandpa down, or anyone else in our family. But to me what was more impactful was the expectation “to do good and be good”. There was (and still is) a strong sense of pride in being a part of the family – in being a Kingsbury.
Grandpa Harley often told me as a young girl that “if good people don’t step up, others will.” Inherent in this statement was a call to action. A call to do what you could to make things better for everyone around you, however you could. While I’m far from perfect, I do try to live my life that way. From this core belief comes my desire to step up now in the work of this online community I’m building and try do my part to help other leaders on their journey.
Thanks for stopping by to read the first chapter in my story!
Mary
What role has your family and upbringing played in shaping the person you’ve become? Your leadership beliefs? Can anyone relate to the small town accountability? Tight-knit family pride and expectations?
