Steven LaChance Blog

The other day I was going through some old family photos and came across a picture of one of my great grandfathers. I stopped and just stared at it. The truth is, I know almost nothing about him. I didn’t even know he ran a small store in the Soulard area of St. Louis. That’s not a small detail. That’s a life. That’s part of who he was. And yet I never knew.

That realization sat heavy on me. Not just because I felt disconnected from him, but because it made me wonder how easily a life can disappear from memory. One generation passes, then two, and suddenly someone who lived and worked and loved becomes just a name or a face in a fading photo.

Then I started learning more. I found out he lost a child in a tornado. He worked in a coal mine. He was a farmer. He spent years doing hard physical labor before eventually running his own store. He went from working for others to working for himself. He built something. He provided. And when I looked back at that photo, I saw it differently. The sadness in his face suddenly made sense. It wasn’t just age. It was life. Real life. Pain, resilience, perseverance. And I had never really stopped to wonder what stories lived behind that expression until now.

Then I learned something else. His name was Allen. That’s my middle name. I always thought it came from my dad, and it did, but we both got it from him. And then I passed it to my son. And now my grandson carries it too. That’s five generations. My great grandfather. My dad. Me. My son. My grandson. Allen. It’s not just a name anymore. It’s a thread that connects all of us. A quiet legacy that’s still alive and still moving forward.

That realization shifted something in me. It made me think about what I’m passing down. What will my great grandchildren know about me one day? Will they know more than just the books I wrote or the shows and films I appeared in? Will they know the man I was when the cameras were off and the world wasn’t watching? Or will I fade into history the way my great grandfather almost did for me?

Yes, I’ve created things that will outlive me. But I’m learning that legacy is more than what you do. It’s who you are. It’s how you live. It’s the moments you show up. The values you hold. The love you give. The pain you survive. Those things matter just as much, if not more, than anything with your name in print or credits.

That one photo started all of this. It opened a door I didn’t know I needed to walk through. And now I want to make sure that my story, the real story, doesn’t get lost. Not the polished version. The human one. I want my future family to know what made me laugh. What tested me. What I believed in. What I struggled to figure out. Because those are the pieces that make someone more than a name on a page. That’s what brings a person to life long after they’re gone.

Maybe that’s what we all want in the end. Not just to be remembered. But to be known.