Some say curiosity killed the cat, but for Travis Bradshaw, curiosity enabled him to capture a piece of history before it was too late. In June, Bradshaw, in his 11th year as agricultural education instructor in Burlington, Oklahoma, decided to do something he always said he would do.
A left turn here and a few miles off the beaten path landed him in Lyndon, Kansas, birthplace of one of the most iconic men of agricultural education: E.M. Tiffany, author of the FFA Creed.
Pulling into the small town of a little over 1,000 people, Bradshaw expected to see a monument, statue or at the very least, a sign claiming the luminary. Sadly, he saw nothing. After combing the local cemetery he located the Tiffany grave with Erwin Milton and Clara’s names visible in the stone. Still reeling at the idea that the town seemed to be oblivious to their national celebrity, Bradshaw headed to the town café for lunch.
He made some inquiries as to the Tiffany name without any luck but was eventually pointed toward the town historical society. Incredibly, even the historical society was unaware of the Tiffany family legacy.
“Nobody knew that this man was from Lyndon or was buried there, and yet his words have been recited by millions of FFA members since 1930,” Bradshaw explained. “I was just in shock that no one had paid tribute to him in the town.”
With the new knowledge of their former citizen, the search began for any records of the Tiffany family. After some investigating, the Tiffany files were found tucked away in a filing cabinet, as if waiting to be discovered. Now armed with an obituary and a family tree, Bradshaw set out to unearth more of the mystery he had inadvertently stumbled upon.
Later Bradshaw began to wonder how many descendants of Tiffany were still alive and if they could provide more details on his life. He examined the family tree, seeing that E.M. Tiffany had one child, a son named Jackson. From the obituary he learned the Tiffanys have settled in Madison, Wisconsin, after leaving Lyndon. Looking for a break in the case, Bradshaw decided the easiest way to find relatives of the family would be an Internet search of any Tiffanys still living in Madison. His search yielded results so he dialed the first number on the list.
A seasoned, but steady voice answered the phone, and after a short explanation of his intentions, Bradshaw asked if the man on the line was related to E.M. or Jackson Tiffany. After a brief pause the man replied, “I am Jackson Tiffany.”
Cultivating the seed
Few people experience a moment like Bradshaw did that day. He never imagined a simple detour could lead him to the most incredible experience of his life thus far. After all of the awards and accomplishments he and his chapter have achieved, he says without hesitation, this discovery is his most cherished.
“With social media and the Internet and the reporting world the way that it is right now, there are very few things that haven’t been discovered,” Bradshaw said. “It seems that everyone has found everything, and this was just our little piece to help out FFA history.”
In utter shock that Jackson Tiffany still resides in the same town, living a normal life without anyone realizing the impact of his lineage, Bradshaw was quick to ask for an in-person interview. At the ripe old age of 88, Jackson agreed to his first on-camera interview about his father. It turns out, up until this time, with little involvement in the FFA, no one had even realized a child of E.M. Tiffany existed. Coincidently, Jackson was surprised to learn his father’s words were still so valuable to the organization and new members of the FFA still recite them every year.
After the call, Bradshaw contacted his chapter reporter, Bayli Hyde, and after explaining the phenomenon that had been his drive back from Kansas and his phone call with the last living authentic Tiffany, he asked if she could think of any way to properly honor E.M. Tiffany in Lyndon. Hyde came up with an idea to create a window display about E.M. Tiffany and the FFA in Lyndon’s town museum.
“Before we made the display, we went to Indianapolis, Indiana, to the National FFA archives to see if anymore information could be found,” Hyde said.
Considering the limited information National FFA had collected on E.M., Bradshaw and Hyde were optimistic about their engagement with Jackson. They traveled to Madison to meet with him and hear his side of the story.
A professional video crew was hired to capture the momentous encounter. Bradshaw said the interview went on for hours. He described it with the only word he could: priceless.
“I remember memorizing these words to the FFA Creed back in 1995, and I know them word for word by heart and so do millions of FFA members,” Bradshaw gushed. “To actually talk to E.M. Tiffany’s son, and he talked with him and knew him and he knew what his feelings were when he was writing the creed was amazing. If it hadn’t been recorded in an interview like this, it would have just been lost to time, and no one would have known.”
To Hyde, being in the presence of Tiffany’s only son was almost supernatural.
“It felt like E.M. Tiffany was in the room,” Hyde explained. “It was better than meeting a celebrity.”
Collectively, Bradshaw and Hyde agreed their favorite story Jackson told was about his father and an ear of corn. Bradshaw says Jackson reminisced when he was growing up there was always an ear of corn in a glass case on his father’s bookshelf. When Jackson was of age, he asked his father why he kept the corn. E.M. said one day he returned home to Lyndon to help his father on the farm, and after they had finished working in the field that evening his father broke off an ear of corn and hung it up from the front porch. When E.M. got ready to go back to Wisconsin, his father gifted it to him. He took it back to Madison and always kept it as a reminder of his life and work on the farm in Lyndon and his roots in agriculture.
E.M. Tiffany held several occupations in his life including lumberjack, high school principal and most notably, agriculture education teacher at the University of Wisconsin. During his time on staff at the college in the late 1920s, he learned of the Future Farmers of America, as it was called then, and was prompted to compose a creed for the organization. It was adopted in 1930.
“He thought those students and those teachers in that organization deserved a creed that would share what their hopes were for the future of agriculture and what their dreams were,” Bradshaw said. “It’s amazing, since 1930, the FFA Creed has only been revised two times, and they were both very small changes. I think that’s a tribute to E.M. Tiffany, that in 1928, he was able to envision and write a creed that was able to last over 85 years. I think someone with that ability to see into the future what our needs would be, I think someone with that type of vision needs to be honored and recognized.”
Harvesting the yield
After returning from Wisconsin, the Burlington FFA chapter began work with the Lyndon historical society on the window display. Hyde enlisted the help of Burlington’s chapter president, Sara Garvie, and vice president, Allyson Stewart, for the special project. Now with the display finished, patrons of the museum can now learn about E.M. Tiffany and his lasting impression on the FFA association.
The realization of E.M. Tiffany’s impact has not gone unnoticed by his hometown. Along with the display in the museum and the monument the town plans to dedicate to his memory, the Lyndon Historical Society plans to include another chapter just for Tiffany in the Osage County history book. But the town of Lyndon is not the only party interested in Bradshaw’s findings.
“National FFA was very interested in our work because they realized that not a lot of information had ever been collected about E.M. Tiffany, and they definitely wanted to do some recognition in the future for him,” Bradshaw said.
In fact, the interviews could not have come at a more appropriate time, as 2015 will mark the 85th anniversary of the creed. Bradshaw hopes to be able to use the footage and information to mark the anniversary and provide more details on E.M. Tiffany for future generations.
“Our end goal is to make a longer documentary that can be put on the National FFA website so ag teachers can show it in their classes to freshman who are learning the FFA Creed,” Bradshaw explained. “With this video footage and information we were able to gain from his son, I think that’s going to make a permanent, lasting tribute to E.M. Tiffany that hopefully millions of FFA members in the future will be able to watch and understand about the man who wrote these words.”
Hyde, who placed fourth in Oklahoma’s state creed speaking contest last year, also hopes to share the findings with all FFA members and provide more specifics of the life of Tiffany for FFA Greenhands.
“I really think it will give them more of an insight to E.M. Tiffany’s life and how he felt about FFA and the FFA Creed,” she said.
To Bradshaw, the discovery is more than a historical triumph—it’s an opportunity to rekindle the foundation this organization was built on.
“As the FFA grows and the amount of rural students in FFA continues to shrink as small farming communities dry up, more FFA members come from an urban setting,” Bradshaw said. “While they are a vital part to the future of agriculture and the FFA, we sometimes get so far removed that we forget where our roots are. This is a way for generations in the future to actually come back to that creed and realize the man who wrote it and his work in agriculture. I think if anything, this is an inspiration to future FFA members to say I’m going to take what I learned here in agriculture or through the FFA and I’m going to apply those skills or life lessons to wherever the future may take me.”
It’s an undeniably happy ending for this story. A teacher was given unfathomable joy and restitution for his passion for teaching agriculture. An FFA chapter will be able to share their information with an entire young nation. A son now knows just how significant his father was to an organization still inspired by words he wrote almost 85 years ago. A town absent a national celebrity now realizes the importance of a man who once called their city home, and a most encouraging individual is remembered for the prolific life he led. And no cats died in the process.
Lacey Vilhauer can be reached by phone at 620-227-1858 or [email protected].
The FFA Creed
“I believe in the future of agriculture, with a faith born not of words but of deeds—achievements won by the present and past generations of agriculturists; in the promise of better days through better ways, even as the better things we now enjoy have come to us from the struggles of former years.
I believe that to live and work on a good farm, or to be engaged in other agricultural pursuits, is pleasant as well as challenging; for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement, I cannot deny.
I believe in leadership from ourselves and respect from others. I believe in my own ability to work efficiently and think clearly, with such knowledge and skill as I can secure, and in the ability of progressive agriculturists to serve our own and the public interest in producing and marketing the product of our toil.
I believe in less dependence on begging and more power in bargaining; in the life abundant and enough honest wealth to help make it so—for others as well as myself; in less need for charity and more of it when needed; in being happy myself and playing square with those whose happiness depends upon me.
I believe that American agriculture can and will hold true to the best traditions of our national life and that I can exert an influence in my home and community which will stand solid for my part in that inspiring task.”
—The creed was written by E. M. Tiffany and adopted at the 3rd National Convention of the National FFA Organization. It was revised at the 38th Convention and the 63rd Convention.
