Name/Title
AU Harris, Paul Joseph Jr. - 1990-09-15 letter to Daniel Alfred HarrisEntry/Object ID
1991.2.16Context
3923 Seeley Avenue
Downers Grove, IL 60515
September 15, 1990
Dear Uncle Dan,
I sincerely regret that I have not been able to accomplish a second visit to you this summer. After canceling my July visit, I had hoped to make another trip shortly after that time, to personally bring you the photos of the picture you let me copy. Since it has been so long since my promise to return, the ten photos you requested are enclosed.
There is a reason I have not made it down. I have been preoccupied with family affairs and am sorry it has taken me so long to let you know. My.ex-wife, Cathy, was diagnosed with colon cancer in July. She was scheduled for surgery to remove the blockage; anticipated as a simple procedure. When the general surgeon opened her up he found cancer spread all over her abdominal wall. He didn't feel like he could handle the situation so he closed her back up and sent her to M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas, for a specialized evaluation. The prognosis was reportedly not good.
Cathy has since undergone chemotherapy and has had a very rough time of it. The information that I get is sketchy, but I believe they are planning to perform surgery in about three months, after the chemotherapy has had a chance to help. Everything has been pretty hectic with the children; a lot of things are up in the air at this time.
I am not sure just when, but I will get down to see you some time this fall. I still have a lot of questions for you!
I attended a Lambert reunion this summer. The gathering was at Calvin Vaughn Lambert's house in Lancaster, Wisconsin. He is a great grandson of Reece Benjamin Lambert, who was a brother of your grandfather, Daniel Webster Lambert. I took my portable computer and was the hit of the party. Through some documents that others had brought, we discovered that Reece's wife, Lydia Hanson, was a great granddaughter of Joseph Stubbs and Zilpha Hayes, who were also the great grandparents of Deborah Vernon Embree. It is a small world. We also discovered that a distant Lambert cousin in their branch married the daughter of George King Harris, your great uncle. I have reached far for information on our family and have received much. I could not possibly wade through it without the computer.
The children went with me and we had a wonderful time. We have a lot of very nice cousins around this world. Our cousin, Doris (Lambert) Braley of Minneapolis, has a daughter who recently graduated from Oberlin College and has studied in Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa, where your Aunt Elsie served and died.
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She currently lives in Washington, DC, and I have encouraged her to visit Malcolm Smith who has a copy of "Heaven's Wooing." I think she might enjoy sharing that part of our family history.
Thank you again for sharing that trunk of information that we found on my last visit. There is so much valuable information there. Also, if possible, I would like to have the trunk as well. A comment I read in an old letter leads me to believe that it may have belonged to your grandfather, Daniel. He may have used it to carry his books on the floor of his wagon as he made his appointed rounds.
Now that I have the original manuscript of Watson Harris‘ autobiography, I am working on restoring the computer stored version to the original spelling. When your father's secretary retyped Jim's typescript in 1933 she corrected all of the spelling "errors" that Jim had worked so hard to preserve. Once I complete this task I intend to take Watson's story to publication as your parents had wanted. I believe that this is the best way to share our heritage with his other descendants and it deserves to be a truly quality publication made to last for many generations. I will keep you posted on the progress of this project.
I would also like to eventually do the same thing with your mother's story; particularly since we found the supplemental hand-written chapters. I believe that this will be a huge project because I would like to include a lot of photographs and documents. That is why I am going to tackle Watson's story first; there is very little in the way of documents and no pictures to go along with his story.
I am including a rough draft of the hand-written pages that we found of your mother's autobiography. These can be inserted at the end of her story in the book I made for you even though the type does not match with what you already have. I am working on footnoting and indexing the whole story and when that is complete I will reprint the whole story for you. In the meantime you can get a laugh out of my scholarly attempts at documentation and style. I feel as though I have taken on a never-ending job, and I believe that to be the case. I could never have gotten as far as I have without your help. Thank you.
The documents that you gave me on my last visit have raised a few more questions that you may be able to shed some light on:
There was a letter written in 1863 by Abner Monroe to Daniel Webster Lambert in which he calls him cousin. In the 1860 census records, Abner Monroe was living with Daniel and Deborah as a farm hand. I am wondering if he was really a relative or if "cousin" was used in the letter as a term of familiarity? I am not aware of any Monroes related to any Lamberts. Does any of this mean anything to you?
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Your mother states that Paul graduated from high school in 1917 and enlisted in the S.A.T.C. at Otterbein. I believe the year may have been 1918 but I don't know what S.A.T.C. stands for. You said Paul was in R.0.T.C. and I presume they are similar organizations. Any comments here?
Your mother was in an auto accident in 1917. I do not know if they were traveling to or from Columbus but presume that since the accident occurred a ways southeast of Columbus that they were on their way to or from Athens County. I wonder if you have any more information about this event and the nature and extent of any injuries involved?
Your mother also mentions having major surgery in Grant Hospital in 1918, about the time Paul was graduating from high school. Do you recall what this operation was about?
If you have any recollections that may help with the above questions please jot them down as a reminder or drop me a note. Let me close and get this in the mail. Hope to see you soon.
Sincerely,
