Weekend connects Boy Scout, grandson of group founder

COVINGTON - Where Al Beard came from, it was three hours earlier.

Where he was going, it was 130 years earlier.

At least he felt like he was traveling that far back in time, visiting his grandfather's house.

Mr. Beard, 58, of Portland, Ore., the grandson of Boy Scouts of America founder Daniel Carter Beard, flew to Northern Kentucky on Friday in a Scout's honor.

It was time to celebrate the accomplishments of 18-year-old Brian Schefold.

Mr. Schefold had invited Mr. Beard to Covington for a big weekend: Mr. Schefold graduated Friday night from Holmes High School; and on Saturday afternoon, he received his Eagle Scout award at Central Baptist Church in Erlanger.

It was Mr. Beard's first time in Kentucky. As a bonus, he got to stay with Mr. Schefold's family in the historic, 175-year-old house at 322 E. Third St. in Covington, where Daniel Carter Beard grew up.

And he got to see for the first time the third-floor room where his grandfather slept as a boy.

Only two boys in the long history of that house have slept in that room: Daniel Carter Beard and Brian Andrew Schefold.

On Friday night, that select fraternity grew by exactly one. Though Al Beard doesn't qualify as a boy anymore, his wide eyes as he stared up at the big, white-brick house before entering were those of an awe-struck child.

Happy to oblige

Mr. Schefold, a personable and polite young man with red hair so short it sticks up straight along his part, met Al Beard last year while he was working on his Eagle Scout project.

Mr. Schefold traveled with his stepfather, Covington lawyer Philip Taliaferro, to Mr. Beard's Oregon home in the spring of 1995.

Their mission: to pick Mr. Beard's brain for memories of his grandfather and rummage through his boxes of Daniel Carter Beard memorabilia.

Al Beard, who recently retired as manager of a team of software developers for Intel, was more than happy to oblige.

To earn the rank of Eagle Scout, Mr. Schefold, who turned 18 on March 31, had decided to do the research necessary for a presentation on the elder Mr. Beard that could bring him to life for younger generations.

"When I give tours of the house, it amazes me how many people don't know who he was or what he did," Mr. Schefold said.

"I didn't like the idea of people not knowing who he was."

Rooting through the boxes in Al Beard's garage and the storage unit he had rented, Mr. Schefold got to know Daniel Carter Beard.

He read the poems that the elder Mr. Beard had written his wife in choppy, pointed scrawl. He marveled at the beadwork on leather garments Indians gave Mr. Beard. He pored over a dissertation that a doctoral student in Wisconsin had written on Mr. Beard.

And he ran his hands along a real Kentucky Long Rifle.

What had that rifle had in its sights? How long had those Indians spent on the intricate beadwork on the buckskin jacket in which Daniel Carter Beard had been immortalized in a Norman Rockwell painting on the cover of Boy's Life magazine?

Tough for Mom

This has been a big weekend for Mr. Schefold. Understandably, he has been a little tired and somewhat distracted. The house at the end of Third Street, with its bronze statues of Daniel Carter Beard and a young Scout in front, has swarmed with people.

Mr. Schefold lives in the house with his mother and Mr. Taliaferro. But in the fall he will move to Danville, Ky., to attend Centre College.

As mothers will, Diana Taliaferro had moments this weekend when the tears came.

"Hopefully by the time we get back, Mom'll have the sheets on the bed, and everything'll be ready," a smiling Mr. Schefold told Mr. Beard as he picked him up Friday at the Cincinnati - Northern Kentucky International Airport.

"She promised. She promised."

Mrs. Taliaferro had an especially tough job: Not only did she have to watch her baby graduate and prepare to move out, but as chairwoman of Covington Independent Schools, she had to hand him his diploma.

Still, the sheets were on, and the bed in Daniel Carter Beard's old room was made when her son returned with his guest.

Al Beard looked around the room with his mouth open. Then he looked out the window toward the river.

"The aura," he said.

"It feels like you're more in a museum than a house.

"All you folks are finding out about Dan Beard. I'm finding out about my grandfather.

"I never met him. For me, it's about family.

"That's different."

Not so different, really. Family ties were strong all around Friday and Saturday at the big house on Third Street. It's just that for one family, the weekend was about letting go. For the other, it was about coming home.

Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 292-7169.

Published June 2, 1996.