Recollections

Submitted by: NelliBlu28@aol.com

 

My paternal grandfather, Earnest L. Harrison was born in Yutan, NE Jan.8, 1890. Son of Ellen Josephine Owen & Herman R. Harrison. He entered the service May 1917. Leader of 134th Infantry Band, 34th Division. Trained at Camp Cody, New Mexico. Overseas Oct.13, 1918. He became a Professor at the University Nebraska - Lincoln School of Music. He was a founder of the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra, originally Little Lincoln Symphony, being one of the original "Seven".

I grew up in my grandfather's house after he had a stroke (when I was a year old) and my parents moved in to care for him and my ailing grandmother. I was never fortunate enough to have known him before his stroke but I grew up with a deep appreciation for music, especially classical and was, what my mother refers to as "weaned on Beethoven." I have always been proud of him and his talent. I would like to share a short story that my aunt, Gloria Ruth Harrison Friesell wrote many years ago. My cousin Nancy Oltjenbruns of Ceresco, NE, shared it with me.

" As a young child, I only recall my father as a person who was seldom at home or only practicing on his beloved piano when he was at home. He was 35 when I arrived, his third offspring. For the next 10 years he was a shadowy figure in my memory devoting all of his interest and energies in his musical career. Each summer we would all visit his mother & father at Memphis, Nebraska. He owned a 1930 Packard, later a '33 Pontiac.

The 4th of July was his "big day", for he bought a box of fireworks and enjoyed helping my brother, sister and me in setting them off. On hot summer evenings in the '30s he would take us on pleasant drives around Lincoln or to Emerald or Oak Creek lake when motor boat races were going on.

I saw him perform as the soloist with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra {Grieg's Concerto in A} in the late 1930s. He was in a small chamber recital at the Jocelyn Memorial Music Hall in Omaha one Sunday, which my mother, sister and I attended. He played the second violin with the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra and I usually went to the evening performances with my mother to hear the program and a featured soloist such as Ruth Sieneguski {pianist , my age}, Albert Spalding, violinist, and Marion Anderson, contralto {a colored performer}.

He was a soft-spoken man, but was easily irritated by his noisy children. Not one of us dared to defy him! An order was to be obeyed with no explanation. His life was perfect when he received his 4th child, our red-haired "Sunny Jim", in 1933, a dear little boy. Some summer evenings would be spent taking walks to 20th & D Street where the First Plymouth Congregational Church is located. The church has a courtyard, where we, my sister, little brother Jim and I would all run around and play while Dad waited for us. Our home was at 1730 C Street. We lost that home in 1938 with Dad's $5,000 equity in it, for lack of $2,000 to finish paying for it."

The "Sunny Jim" that Gloria is referring to was my Dad, who died of cancer in 1964 when I was 8 years old.

Always digging for my roots, Kathie Harrison

Lancaster Co. Coordinator, NEGenWeb Project

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~irishrose/lancindex.html

To understand the living you must commune with the dead.

l

© 2002 GFNEWS, a monthly publication of the Golden Gate Genealogy Forum, Inc. of Franklin, MA.
(America Online Keyword: roots.) The Editors welcome your ideas and articles,
success stories, favorite genealogy research tips, comments and suggestions.

© 2002 Graphics By Carol, All Rights Reserved