mpty Chair

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

The Baron and his fiancée, Lady Angela of Alpine Castle, enjoyed entertaining visiting dignitaries in the Grand Banquet Hall. There was a strange custom handed down to each generation of the Von Lodges that one chair should remain empty at all events in the banquet hall.

The Baron was informed of the custom but was never told how it came about in the first place. The Baron had wanted to do away with the custom as it seemed silly but the elders thought that it was not a good idea.

The Baron asked his chief advisor, Professor Hamblin, to investigate the origin of this strange custom. After a few weeks of searching the Lilliland archives in the castle library, he found what he was looking for regarding the empty chair.

The current Baron was informed that Professor Hamblin found a mention of the custom in an old will written by one of the first leaders of Lilliland. The will said that the now-deceased Baron would return in spirit to assist the current Baron in the decision-making processes for the future of Lilliland. The signal for his return would be the empty chair at the banquet table. Every Baron since that time kept one chair empty at the table so that the spirit of the early Baron would come and help with the guidance of the country.

The Baron was pleased with the Professor’s research and findings, but the Baron still did not know what to do about the empty chair. He decided to do nothing for now and kept the empty chair as always.

Perhaps someday a picture of that early Baron would be hung in the Grand Banquet Hall in place of the empty chair so that he would never be forgotten.

But that decision would have to wait for another time.