Notebook: Legacies
Video: As we begin the New Year, let's not forget all those who passed away in 2006 — people who left a huge legacy even if they weren't famous enough to get an obituary in The New York Times.
Innovators like Henry Beachell whose research on hybrid rice saved millions from starvation, or Bernard Rimland a pioneering autism researcher.
Heroes like Rosamund Carr, a fashion illustrator who ran an orphanage for abandoned children in Rwanda, or Norman Shumway, who performed the first successful heart transplant.
Then there's Gary Comer, who started a small, mail-order business themed on his passion for sailboats which became a company called Land's End. Comer gave away most of his Land's End millions to improve health care.
There are countless others whose names we may never know, but who loved their families and contributed to their communities.
Everyone leaves a legacy, whether they're famous or not.
That's a page from my notebook.