Name/Title
AU Harris, Daniel Alfred - 1980-05-15 letter to Richard Lambert HarrisEntry/Object ID
1989.1.56Context
Daniel A. Harris
5840 S. W. 48th St.
Miami, Florida 33155
May 15, 1980
Dear Dick:
Many thanks for the terrific birthday card, and for the coded messages inside, and the generous check.
I enclose a copy of a letter that I am trying to send to all of the Lambert cousins I can locate. Perhaps you can help me. Do you like the idea? Certainly, you are under no pressure to contribute.
I am going to New York and Conn. for the last week in May to visit the grandchildren. I might come to Otterbein for June 13 and 14. I will let you know.
Are you in touch with the Selby boys? Could you let me have their address?
Let me hear from you when you have time.
As ever,
Dan
[End of Page 1]
Dear Lambert cousins:
We are all grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, of Daniel Webster Lambert and Deborah Vernon Embree, and through their ten children we are all related. I happen to be on of the two surviving sons of Rev. Joseph H. Harris and Bertha Elizabeth Lambert. My brother Richard lives in Worthington, Ohio, north of Columbus, Ohio.
It has occurred to me that we should in some way recognize the significant contribution of Daniel and Deborah Lambert to the quality of life which we enjoy. He was a self taught preacher and circuit rider in southern Ohio. She, of Quaker background, was dismissed from her own church because of marrying outside the fold. In their home they held up the highest ideals before the children, and urged them to prepare themselves for greater usefulness. They moved to Westerville, where some of their children had attended Otterbein College, and in the following years many of the grandchildren went to school there.
To come to the point, I am now suggesting that we combine our efforts to establish a memorial of some sort at Otterbein, and I will be happy to start the ball rolling by contributing $1,000. I am not interested in knowing how much you may care to contribute, but I sincerely hope that you will want to have a part in this project. I doubt whether we could raise enough money to establish a scholarship fund, but I do believe that we could pay for a significant item in the Library, or the Fine Arts building of Otterbein College that could serve to keep alive the names of these two remarkable pioneers.
As a child it was my pleasure on one occasion to ride the circuit with grandfather Lambert in southern Ohio. We stopped at a creek and took off our shoes and stockings and went wading together. Grandmother Lambert made her home with my parents in Columbus, Ohio during her later years. Only in retrospect do I appreciate what strong, admirable people they were.
If you care to write to me I will ask the promotion office of Otterbein College to get in touch with you. My best wishes go to all of you.
Thanks for listening
Daniel A. Harris
