Submitted by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette. Waights Gibbs Henry Jr., whom I never had the opportunity of getting to know, must have had a capacious moral imagination matched by perseverance even French bureaucracy could not whack-a-mole into surrender. The image of Lafayette on Lafayette Square, downtown LaGrange, Georgia, is his doing, his influence, his mustering of like-minded accomplices. He was an ordained Methodist minister by way of Emory, Birmingham Southern, and Yale. President of LaGrange College for thirty years 1948-1978, and Chancellor until his death May 29, 1989, at the age of 79, Dr. Henry was a self-taught Lafayette scholar, a genuine Lafayettologist. His correspondence, archived at LaGrange College, reflects “a well-ordered mind” (Henry Adams’s phrase), convinced that Lafayette’s story is relevant, and that LaGrange could be a landmark destination for things Lafayette. In 1972 Rene de Chambrun, direct descendant of Lafayette and owner of Chateau de LaGrange, invited Dr. and Mrs. Henry to visit. They toured the Chateau, forty-five miles east of Paris. They attended the July 4 commemoration at Picpus Cemetery in Paris, where Lafayette and his wife Adrienne are buried. The American flag, which had been on display at Lafayette’s grave for the previous year, was presented to Dr. Henry. Every year since 1836 (Lafayette died May 20, 1834), by order of the United States Congress, a newly minted American flag is…
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