In September 1941, the death of a family member prompted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to say how he should be remembered.

One of America's greatest presidents wanted only a plain block of stone, about the size of his desk, to be placed on the front lawn of the National Archives Building, with the words "In memory of . . . ."

Friends--not the government--installed it, 20 years after he died. It's still there.

Another great president, Thomas Jefferson, also insisted on simplicity. The epitaph on his gravestone would state only that he had written the Declaration of Independence and Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, and had founded the University of Virginia, not that he was elected president........

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