William Dann, 72, puts on his glasses as he sits down in the reading room at the Presbyterian Manor last Wednesday. “I’m a peripheral person,” insists Dann, who believes he is among those who are unacceptable in society. Despite Dann’s opinion of himself, he is highly regarded by many social service providers in Lawrence who have benefited from his philanthropy.

To many who know him, Dann's self-deprecating nature is just an extension of his charm.

Asinine.

William Dann — with a folded copy of the New York Times under one arm and his once-trademark white T-shirt peeking out from underneath his slightly wrinkled button-down — uses that word repeatedly to describe broad swaths of his life.

There were incidents, there were troubles, there were — most of all — missed opportunities, Dann says. But never are they described in more detail than the one-word adjective.

“Just asinine,” he says when asked to elaborate. “I’ve wasted more opportunities than most people have ever had.”

That seems to be the nearly constant picture that William Dann’s mind paints of William Dann.

In certain Lawrence circles — especially in the social service arena — a different image emerges of the man who carries a bent neck and a gruff voice but always a strong desire to hold a conversation.

“We often refer to him as our guardian angel,” said Barbara Braa, a board member for the Lawrence-based Kansas Advocates for Better Care, which promotes improved quality in nursing homes. “We couldn’t exist without his generous support.”

Susan Esau, executive director of the Lawrence Schools Foundation, said it is not at all a stretch to suggest that Lawrence’s Early Childhood Readiness Program — a program that provides free preschool services to about 100 at-risk 4-year olds — would not exist if it were not for Dann.

He has given more than $500,000 to the program since 1998. That’s in addition to sizable, although undisclosed, donations to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Kansas Audio Reader, the Ballard Center and other organizations that primarily focus on the young or the elderly.

Yes, somewhere along the way, the flop became the philanthropist. Except, that’s not the way Dann sees it. He has a much different label for himself.

“I’m a peripheral person,” Dann says. “It means that you are on the outer bounds of society. You are not acceptable.”

•••

It was an insurance company, but for the life of him, Dann can’t recall the name at the moment. Regardless, it was an insurance company that did it all.

“My grandfather started an insurance company and made a great deal of money, and that’s what we have all lived off of ever since,” Dann said.

A little research and a later recollection by Dann confirmed that the company was called the Merchants Fire Assurance Corp. in New York. His grandfather was Edward L. Ballard. One New York Times article tells of how Ballard was a co-leader of a $1.6 million charitable project in 1921. The article doesn’t dwell much on Ballard, but rather the other leader of the charitable project — a fellow by the name of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Ballard’s daughter — one of two — was Anne “Petey” Cerf, a notable Lawrence advocate and activist who is credited with helping found the Ballard Center, Kansas Audio Reader, Kansas Advocates for Better Care, and the LMH Endowment Association.

Dann, who was a product of Cerf’s first marriage, insists he hasn’t done nearly as much as his mother.

“I have no credentials,” he says.

In fact, Dann says that he has never worked in a job for more than six weeks, and that was at a swimming pool while he was a high school student.

He has not, however, sat idle. Among those who pay attention, Dann has gained a reputation in Lawrence as a political philosopher.

Over the last 29 years, Dann estimates that he has written more than 300 “advertorials,” essentially political advertisements that he pays to have placed in the Journal-World.

The dominant topic has been abortion, which he vehemently opposes.

“It was the worst decision the Supreme Court has ever made, or that any court has ever made,” Dann said.

Other topics have included the need for more gun control, an abhorrence of the concept of “social promotion” in education, mandatory jail time for drunken drivers, and reasons why the U.S. ought to consider drug legalization.

“I claim I’ve been right on all of them,” Dann said.

He also claims the advertorials — along with what used to be frequent advocacy at Lawrence City Commission meetings — have been his work.

“I consider it work when I examine a problem and come to what I think is the correct conclusion,” Dann said.

That’s the way it has been ever since New York.

Other than Lawrence, New York is where Dann has lived the longest. After an unsuccessful stint in college, Dann landed in New York City in the 1960s, and eventually it is the place where he became convinced he would never have a career in the traditional sense, never have a wife, never have a family.

“My balloon burst in New York,” Dann said. “That is when I realized I was a peripheral person. That was painful.”

•••

The “peripheral person” routine oftentimes draws a smile, or sometimes even a laugh, from Dann’s associates. They all have heard it for years now. By the time Dann returned to Lawrence in 1977, he already had adopted it as his moniker.

Some now just take it as a part of his personality.

“He has a self-deprecating humor, but that just makes him more charming,” said Esau, the leader of the schools foundation.

But that doesn’t mean they agree with his assessment. They say for a man who is supposed to be on the outer edge, he has done much to touch the core of Lawrence’s social service community.

“Bill really does care,” Esau said. “He cares so much about children and youth, and he wants to make sure every child in Lawrence has the same opportunities. I think he feels like if he can continue to do what he does, he is helping one child at a time.”

Braa — who has known Dann since the 1980s and worked for his mother for 12 years — said she believes Dann is finding happiness by following in his family’s long tradition of giving.

“I think he is enjoying giving it away,” Braa said. “He takes pleasure in giving gifts and seeing his money being put to work now in the community. He could wait and give it all later, but seeing it have its effect has had an effect on him.”

•••

Yes, seeing his money help children and others has been nice. Dann will admit that.

But he won’t say it has brought him peace.

“I’ve been frustrated all my life,” Dann said. “There is no doubt about that. If you are unemployed and unmarried, you are frustrated.”

Maybe the giving and generosity should have changed that, but Dann is a tough man to change. A car wreck in college should have changed him. It killed the passenger who was sitting next to him in the back seat. It left Dann in a coma for 10 days. But when he awoke, Dann said he was still the same misfit missing out on opportunities left and right.

It would be years later, Dann said, before he decided to change. He straightened up, whatever that means, but also decided that there was no room for him in the mainstream. He believes he had no choice but to go that path.

“I was unemployed and unemployable, and I had nothing to put on my record,” Dann said. “I was just a mess.”

Now, he may not be a mess, but he is still discontented.

“Part of my indictment of the status quo is that it creates peripheral people all the time,” said Dann, running off a litany of problems that include school systems that graduate people who can’t read, a justice system that doesn’t truly punish drunken drivers, a society that increasingly produces children out of wedlock. “It especially happens to young men. Young men who want to get married, as I wanted to, but they’ve dropped out, they’re unemployed and they can’t realistically do any of that.”

But that decision was a long time ago, and likely more than a million dollars worth of donations ago — although Dann says it would not be in “good taste” to comment on the total amount of donations he’s given to Lawrence causes.

Dann is now 72 and lives comfortably at Presbyterian Manor, although he says he doesn’t participate in the card games or bingo or other such activities. That’s not what a peripheral person does.

Instead, he spends hours at a time reading in the library. His apartment includes a piano — he plays jazz by ear, although he frequently demurs when others ask him to play for them.

But still, surely, this is the point in the story — and in life — where Dann says there are no regrets. All’s well that ends well. But that would be very mainstream for William Dann. No, he can’t muster that ending line.

“It has been,” Dann says, “a bizarre existence.”