My namesake: Leslie Arthur Baskett
Born in October 1883 near Grangeville, Idaho
Over the decades, I receive one of two comments when people want to engage me on my last name (Bradshaw):
- Are you related to Terry Bradshaw? He’s one of my dad’s / uncle’s favorite football players of all time.
- Huh, that’s cool. Bradshaw, like Carrie on Sex and the City.
These comments always make me smile. Sometimes I pull their leg and say my uncle is Terry, before coming clean. Other times I ask a question or two in response: is there a favorite memory about x-Bradshaw you can share?
And yet, nice as they are, these comments miss the depth to my name. And if they miss the depth to my name, chances are, I am missing depths to their names, too.
What’s in a Name?
A few questions I like to prompt myself with when it comes to first meeting someone and / or better understanding the history of someone’s name:
- What is the story of their name? How is it pronounced so I can honor the name and person in their fullest?
- What might I be missing if I gravitate to one part of someone’s name (e.g. Bradshaw) and miss the first and middle (e.g. Leslie Ann)?
- What am I subconsciously bringing to another person’s name from preconceived notions, biases, or personal stories?
- I wonder what meaning was meant when their parents bestowed their name in the first place?
- Or maybe it wasn’t their parents but other important figures. What went into the decision-making of their name in the first place? Who weighed in and how did the ultimate decider(s), well, decide?
- Perhaps this person I just met and am getting to know better chose to change their name to better reflect who they are. Perhaps they needed to break from their initial name because it no longer served them. Once you know them better and it is appropriate to ask: What might be a story they could share about this discovery and transformation?
Disclosure: I am of a school of thought that believes prophecies are stored in our names. If this isn’t your school, I respect that. I also invite you to audit a short ‘class’ on it here…
Names as Prophecies
Words spoken over us from birth about the greatness we will rise to, the resilience we will muster in the face of adversity. The kindness and grace we will extend when all else has failed.
How we will summon the wisdom — and perhaps a bit of magic, too — from our ancestors when life throws us curved balls and topsy tuvy twists? If we are quiet enough, we can hear that our names hold so much the answer.
With this in mind, I want to share the prophecies embedded in my name. But before I do, a brief aside on the etymology of prophecy:
And to balance the scales of word origins, a brief aside on what I mean when I evoke the word etymology:
What’s in My Name?
- My middle name (Ann) is after the women on my dad’s side (Dorothy Ann, his mother; Ann, his sister; Karen Ann, my cousin). In fact, my full name is Leslie Ann (not just Leslie). I think of the retired teachers — Grandma Dorothy Ann and Auntie Ann — and summon their wisdom when facing a panoply of challenges with my version of ‘student’. Someone with whom I work. Someone I am engaged to executive coach. Someone that wants to learn something new from me. I also summon cousin Karen Ann’s greatness, as my defacto ‘big sister’ in the way that she’s lived her life and how she is raising her daughter Justine. She is goals.
- My mother’s maiden name: Baskett (with two Ts). This side of my family came across the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s. I am in the process of reading our family history thanks to the meticulous genealogy work done by my mom’s cousin Rebecca Ann Eastman Ward (another Ann, just realized this — so special, I am cry). My thoughts on this heritage have made it into numerous bios and talks over the years, all of which I would sum up as follows:
I have long known I have the pioneering spirit and resilience in me — in some of the hardest moments in my personal and professional lives, I have summoned the strength and courage to keep going from these ancestors.
I have also sat with what it means to pioneer in places that had already been settled by indigenous peoples. Were my ancestors respectful and kind when they arrived? Did they barter fairly and treat those already settled with equality? I know where to start: in Nezperce, Idaho (named after the Nez Perce, a federally recognized tribal nation with more than 3,500 citizens). These are questions I want to explore further and understand if and where I have a duty to make reparations.
- My first name: Leslie. This is where I begin to tear up as I read my mom’s cousin’s records. In them, she has captured this (note Leslie Arthur Baskett passed in September 1959 and is buried in the Nezperce Cemetry):
Leslie Arthur Baskett was a music teacher at Nezperce High School. The 1960 annual (Nezperce High School Warrior) was dedicated to him with this statement:
Seldom, indeed, does one find in the life of a single person both diversity and superiority in services to mankind — in professional, civic and religious fields. Add to such achievements an exemplary character — honest, just, moral, tolerant and understanding — and one has the essential ingredients of greatness.
Embodying all of those qualities, Leslie A. Baskett gave to Nezperce Public Schools two decades of the best years of his life in the outstanding instruction of music.
The memory of Leslie Baskett will ever be enshrined in the hearts of those who knew him. We the students of Nezperce High School, proudly and lovingly dedicate this book as our memorial to a distinguished teacher, a true friend and a dignified great man.
When my mom, Mary Ellen Bradshaw née Baskett, tells me about her grandfather — my great grandfather — she shares stories of being raised by him for a time in her early childhood. Of his musical gifts and deep kindness.
My mom would also tell me — when I was so hopeful to find a life partner and was struggle-busing through the stinkiest, meanest mud circa 2006 to 2019 — you will meet a great man one day because you are named after a great man. And that I did. A man named Jesus Epifanío (English: Jesus Epiphany). If that’s not some etymological and ancestral magic, I do not know what is.
Here’s to the etymologies and prophecies embedded in your name.
May they continue to call out your greatness and arc your path towards joy, abundance, and a just life filled with respect, reverence, and peace.
Forever and ever, amen.
Leslie Ann Bradshaw-Baskett is sixth generation farmer, serial entrepreneur, and burgeoning philosopher. She works full time for a company named for the combination of breaking the sound barrier and for the gold rushers of 1849: Mach49. She also executive coach-mentors through the ExCo Leadership Group, a premiere firm focused on helping boards, executives, and teams unlock their full leadership potential and deliver high-impact performance for their enterprises.
Additionally, Leslie farms in the summer and fall with her family at Bradshaw Vineyards, which is a premium Pinot Noir vineyard in the Willamette Valley committed to being good stewards and preservationists of the land and ecosystem in which it farms. Leslie Ann is based in Oregon, with a side of New York’s East Village and dash of the Caribbean’s Dominican Republic.
