Role Model for Dr. Henry M. Kaiser: My Wife Peggy

My wife Peggy transformed my life. Before meeting her at a dance the second night of Freshman Orientation Week at college September 22, 1962 I knew who I was. My summer of self-discovery had occurred in 1959. I was still not clear, however, how I was going to become and live as this person I now had a vision of. The instant I met Peggy, this changed. Uncertainty vanished. Suddenly I was grounded in this acquaintance, which became a deep love; Peggy’s love gave me the missing piece of my identity and became the foundation of my life. The instant I met her, I somehow sensed that this was going to happen. This feeling endures today, after five years of dating after meeting her, and then 43 years of marriage, and now has continued during the most recent ten years since her passing.

Our melded souls gave each of us meaning. This created a sense of security and safety which made us all but impregnable to external doubts, fears, criticism, self-serving forms of opinions and other forms of adversity. This also created trust, trust so firm and solid that even in times of human imperfection, any fracture in that trust could be overcome. In a world of skepticism and Machiavellian dangers, our circumstances sometimes suffered some vulnerability, but the integrity of our shared vision for where we were trying to make our lives go, and how we were raising our children, remained intact.

Peggy never let me down. She never let either of our daughters down.

— Dr. Henry Mead Kaiser