Lester Gingold. Illustration by Chris 'Honeysuckle' Ellis.
As Memphis experiences its current renaissance, it’s not hard to imagine that, had he had been younger, businessman and publisher Lester Gingold would have been in the thick of the action. Gingold passed away October 5, 2018, at age 96, leaving behind a rich legacy as an impassioned civic booster, an advocate for the aging, and a lifelong idea man.
Gingold led a life in three acts: When his family was young — he raised four children with his wife, Joyce, an artist and art educator — he worked for Sears Retail Stores, first in advertising but eventually rising to become the region’s general merchandise manager. After 34 years with the retail giant, he retired and moved on to The Commercial Appeal at age 59, initially hired as a sales consultant before becoming the company’s advertising manager. He served the daily for 14 years before retooling once again, this time to become the publisher and editor of The Best Times, a monthly newsmagazine for people 50-plus.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gingold during an interview for this publication just a year-and-a-half ago. He was 95 by then, but make no mistake, he was still as alert as ever. I remember asking him if he had any ideas he wanted to address in his editorial column. His bright blue eyes sparkled as he pulled out a yellow legal pad from underneath the chair cushion, scrawled with two pages of notes that ranged from ageism and financial affairs to senior abuse. Mentally idle he was not.
He was fond of saying he’d met five presidents during his lifetime, the earliest prompted by his mother who flagged down the limousine of then-governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt so she could personally introduce her 7-year-old son to the illustrious politician. “I wanted my son to meet a future president,” she told Mr. Roosevelt proudly.
Such moxie imbued Gingold with a belief that anything was possible. An outgrowth of that mindset was Gingold’s knack for marketing products he believed in. While president of the Cotton Carnival during the 1960s, he parlayed his Washington connections to an illustrious meeting with then-President Lyndon B. Johnson to promote the carnival, landing the city’s most popular event on the national stage. As a civic leader, he served a host of organizations, from the Memphis College of Art and the Better Business Bureau to Les Passees and the March of Dimes.
Gingold also had a passion for learning. His home was filled with art and books and newspapers — he subscribed to four even into his mid-90s — because he enjoyed encountering new ideas and staying abreast of current affairs. He was inquisitive by nature and that curiosity often led to new ventures. Launching his publishing career in his late 70s, he penned pithy editorials and championed causes aimed at improving the lives of seniors in Tennessee.
His hope was always to make Memphis, and the world, a better place in which to live. It seems to me successful communities need people like him, people who are always willing to question the status quo, people who care to see beyond what is, to envision what could be.
He led The Best Times until the age of 92, when he passed the baton to James K. Grubbs in 2014. He remained editor emeritus, writing an editorial whenever a topic captured his imagination. “Even at my age, an individual can still be active and do things that make life worth living,” he told me. His final column, on end-of-life decisions and hospice care, came just weeks before his passing.
At the end of his lengthy Commercial Appeal obituary, there was a simple request made by Gingold himself: “Please do something kind and unexpected for someone else.”
In these anxious times, there may be no better way of modeling the positivity Gingold lived by. Let kindness be contagious; let it be woven into the makeup of our community. Let kindness become a watchword of our city’s renaissance. I think Mr. Gingold would certainly approve.
