Legacy MattersTom Cannon was the sort of man who knew he had been given a gift, a second chance at life. After some time, I guess alone and in reflection, he found his meaning and purpose in becoming a role model to others, showing them how generosity ennobles a life and becomes a Great Legacy.
Thomas Cannon, Richmond's self-described poor man's philanthropist, died today after a brief battle with colon cancer. Cannon, who was 79, was known for doling out $1,000 checks to strangers on a postal clerk's salary.
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The $1,000 checks started in 1972. Since then, he gave away more than $155,000, often to people he read about in newspapers. They might be stuck in an unfortunate situation, or maybe they've displayed courage in one way or another. Some had cancer, a coincidence that was not lost on him in his dying days.
Cannon traced his benevolence to his time in the Navy, when dumb luck saved his life. Many of his buddies died in a shipboard explosion after he'd gone off to gunnery school. He always wondered why he'd been spared. Maybe, he finally determined, he was saved to help others and be a role model, to help people see "the oneness of it all."
He thought and talked and wrote like that. He wrote numerous essays over the years that he kept in large folders in his paper-strewn office, which was intended to be a dining room when the
house was built. It was all food for thought for Cannon.
Cannon spent most of the past 33 years retired from the postal service and some of them caring for his wife, Princetta, who died in 2000 after almost 54 years of marriage and a lengthy illness.He used to spend nights lying next to her bed in a sleeping bag on the floor. It was during her illness that it became publicly known that the Cannons' home on Church Hill had fallen into disrepair. A group of admirers raised enough money to purchase and donate a house to the Cannons near Maymont. Tom Cannon lived there until his death.
Via Book of Joe
