I am
looking for myself in my own family story and wonder where do I fit in the
“thicket” of people? And there are a lots of them; artists, musicians, and
lumber people who sacked the northwest of old growth trees, had a steamship
company with seven ships which ferried lumber from Aberdeen and Raymond to San
Francisco. They had so much timber
that they built a small railroad to carry the fallen logs out of the woods to
the mills.
It
was a prosperous family business for many years, until the stock market crashes
and bear markets sent the company into a financial tailspin. Soon they could
not afford to repair their many older railroad trestles and had to sell their
forested land to Weyerhaeuser.
Every time I drive through Willapa Bay area I think of my family of
lumber barons. I never knew them
as I was the youngest of the extended family, but tales were told and when I
heard them it was like they were talking about strangers.
My
father, Lance, decided not to participate in the family business instead went to
Chicago to study at the Art Institute and become an artist. Don’t know what his father thought
about that but I think his mother probably supported him. The 1922 photograph I have hanging on
my wall is of 26 Hart-Wood- Green family members. Looks like there was even a babe in arm and a few ancient
senior members. My father looks
tall and handsome standing in the back row. His mother, Emma, sits in front of him with the sweetest
expression on her face an expression inherited by my dear Aunt Em. The senior lumbermen look stern but
rather elegant in fashionable suits and ties.
My
dad’s favorite cousin and best friend, Fred Hart, was a musician who taught
composition and piano at Julliard in New York. I met him once briefly and he was composing an opera and
played a tune or two from it. I
feel like I am the ebb of the family, the last remaining bits of historical
scatterings.
Love the picture of the very young "Lucy B. Hart Busybody." Interesting musings, as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful little girl. Would she have been surprised, do you think, if she'd known the adventures that lay before her?
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