I had the pleasure of working with Harry for 26 years at Home News Enterprises. We had many conversations during those years. Some were about life, sports, medical insurance and retirement, just to name a few. But the one I remember most was a fun conversation probably 10 years ago about a concrete goose.
Every day on my way to work, I passed a house on Washington Street with a concrete goose on the front porch. It became a staple of my day to look and see how the goose was dressed. On one particular day when I got to work, I went to Harry’s office and suggested he do a story about concrete geese because it seemed they were disappearing from porches and were becoming a thing of the past.
Harry also had a concrete goose on his front porch, so this made the conversation even more fun. I then told him a story a lady once told me about how she purchased a concrete goose and was trying to decide how to safely get the thing home in her car. She decided to stand it up in the front passenger seat with the seat belt wrapped around it. Harry and I got to laughing so hard about this, thinking how funny it must have looked.
I also recall a personal experience about a story Harry wrote in The Republic of a man killed in 1928 when he fell off a bridge he was helping to build in Columbus on Seventh Street. The other workers chiseled into the side of the bridge this man’s name, date of the fall and a large arrow pointing down to the ground where he fell. In 2001 (73 years later), the bridge was to be demolished and rebuilt. But thanks to Harry knowing about the engraving, the engineers decided to cut this part out of the old bridge and patch it into the new bridge. It is there and visible today.
I later sat and talked to Harry about the story he wrote because the man killed on the bridge was my great grandfather. By putting this story in writing, Harry provided our family a treasure to pass down for years to come.
Gosh, what an interesting man Harry was to talk to, listen to and learn from. He provided our community with so many gifts. Thank you, Julie and family, for sharing this wonderful man with Columbus.
Rest in peace, Harry.
– Jennifer Manning, Columbus
