Family History: Eliza Harris 3.6.13

Eliza Eaves Harris was born at Duke Hospital the day before a blizzard in 1996. While researching her paper, Eliza discovered that her parents had an "abundance of information" on her family. Her mother is a writer, and her father is a photographer. "So perhaps it is genetics that most of my extended family recorded their lives, through scrapbooks, photographs, film, and letters."

 Adolf Harris emigrated from what was then Prussia to Texas through Galveston in 1859. Above, you can see Adolf and his wife. Adolf's son, Arthur, is Eliza's great grandfather. For schooling, Arthur went to Phillips Andover, an elite prep school in Massachusetts. Evidently, Arthur was kicked out of Andover after almost setting a building on fire while smoking on school grounds.

 Here is Adolf's family. Arthur is the young man to the left. He eventually married Irma Liebman. During WWII, young Arthur enlisted in the Army. After Japan surrendered in 1945, Arthur senior wrote to request that his son be released from duty so her could take over the family company, The Atlanta Paper Company. Upon his return to the company, Arthur found it in great distress. After Arthur senior retired, his doctor told him that he had to stop doing the three things he loved most: gambling, watching Georgia Tech Football, and gambling on Georgia Tech Football.

 This is Helen Alexander, Eliza's grandmother. She was born in 1922. Her parents loved to go out, so nurses and governesses primarily raised her. Soon after Helen's younger brother was born, when Helen was still very young, she started having a limp in one of her legs. One doctor suggested operating. Her father's best friend was a psychologist. He advised her father to come out to the country with him and his son, and take Helen. When the psychologist's son took Helen's bicycle, her limp mysteriously vanished as she ran after him to retrieve it. The real reason for the limp was that her brother had just been born, and she was jealous of the attention he was getting. Her father wrote in his diary, "Me thinkist my daughter will be an actress."

 Frank Balfour Sartor, Eliza's maternal great grandfather, was born in 1890 in Louisiana. Frank married Earline Williams. Their first child died soon after being born. Their next child was Eliza's grandfather, Fred. Around the time of the Great Depression, Frank fell ill. His illness was kept a secret for many years, even from his own children. The truth was not discovered until many years later that Frank had died of Syphilis.

Fred Williams Sartor was born in 1921, the first of three sons born to Frank and Earline. Fred spent most of his growing up living and working on his family's farm. Fred joined the Navy in WWII as a lieutenant. He served on the USS Nevada, which had originally been a Japanese ship named the Negata before it was captured by the US. Just a few months after getting married in 1952, Fred was call back to the Navy to be the head surgeon on a Naval base in Rhode Island. Sadly, Fred died suddenly of a massive heart attack at age 62. His gravestone reads, "Devoted husband, father, physician."

I will try to keep up with one family history paper each day this week to share. I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am.