Friday, July 29, 2016

Harrison


 

 

Harrison


                            

By john W. Vander Velden

 

     As I drove past the rubble remains of a house trailer, my mind returned to Harrison.  It was where the man lived when I came to this neighborhood in 1972.  I can’t say I really knew the man that shared my grandfather’s birthday.  But I guess I didn’t know my grandparents well either.  Distance and time, barriers that were never crossed, left my parent’s parents only the subjects of stories, made real by those they had raised.  But I had met Harrison…briefly.  And the stories about him gave flesh to the silhouette of a man I saw move about his yard.  Before he came to Marshall County he had been the chef at the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island.  Surely the man had countless stories of those years, but I heard none.  One of his sons lived in the trailer right next door.  Bill and his boys started a business and kept an eye on Harrison.  August 15th, 1890, was the day the two men lives began.  Now almost 132 years later little more than memories remain…and for me only brief glimpses of their incredible lives.  But with the disappearance of that old rotting tin box, will any give a thought to Harrison?  I wonder.  I have no idea where his descendants migrated.  Bill passed years ago.  His daughter moved into that other trailer and left in the mid eighties.  The property sold and the trailers rented, time has been harsh on the structures.  Bill’s trailer replaced with another and now the last earthly reminder of his father is being dismantled and hauled away as scrap. 

     But this post isn’t about Harrison, or my grandfather, or Frank either.  I met Frank in the early sixties. He was 96.  Frank came to visit the farm where his fortunes began.  I do mean fortunes.  He had amassed a financial empire, businesses, hotels in major cities.  By the late sixties and early seventies his high rise hotels in Miami and Chicago were torn down.  Now when you google Frank Morrison…zilch.  At least about that Frank Morrison.  The family sold the farm where it all began a few years ago.  They were too disconnected, I was told.  Disconnected from the land…I fear they were also disconnected from the man. 

     Thinking of Harrison and the others, I consider legacy.  What is it these men have left behind?  What mark did they make…really?  I’m sure the rubble strewn craters of the Morrison Hotels have found other uses.  They were after all prime real estate.  But the years have washed away the memory.  Legacy.  If we tie our whole being to some thing, grand or not, time will erase all traces.  That is unless we build some magnificent pyramid of granite, like those in Egypt.   

     So what should our legacy be?  How do we leave something that matters?  And should we care?  Whether we care or not is for each of us to decide.  But if we do care…then what?  The men of my father’s family each named a son after their father.  It seems that Gerard Vander Velden left a mark.  That is a legacy I believe I should take pride in.  As for me, I have no idea what scratch I will make on this world.  And no idea if that small mark will be remember in my passing.  I carry no pride in that regard. Best I live my life to the best of my abilities…Help others when I can…Be fair in all my dealings…Love my family and friends…Be true to GOD…and trust that my life will have mattered.  And if it does…that will be legacy enough…

 

(608 Words) 7-20-2016 (Updated 7-8-2022)

 

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