At the Holidays I always have my thoughts turn to family members now gone from this life. I wanted to share this with you. A Daughter's Recollection * Note: Earnest Leroy Harrison was one of the "Seven" who founded the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra 75 years ago. He was a Professor at the UNL School of Music from the 1920's to 1954. This story was given to me by my cousin, Nancy Friesell Oltjenbruns. Gloria was her mother. These are recollections about Earnest Harrison, my grandfather, written by his daughter Gloria Harrison Friesell. "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 my aunt was speaking of, was my Dad, James Earnest Harrison, who passed away in 1964 from malignant melanoma at the young age of 31 years. ~Kathie Harrison Take care, Kathie Harrison LLCGS Website Coordinator http://www.rootsweb.com/~nellcgs/index.htm