The idea of photographing Grandpa’s paintings has been kicking around in our family now and again but when one of Jean’s oldest friends, Jude and John Tiersma-Watson, came to visit her John, an artist and poet, asked about the paintings she had around her house. Upon hearing about Harry and his immigrant story, he got excited and said that this is our story and we need to tell it while the paintings are fairly contained within the 30 or so family members – before we lose track of the body of work that defines Harry our father and grandfather.

Jean called Linda and told her what John had said and to ask for help in documenting the paintings. Linda became so excited that when she rejoined some guests she and Fred were entertaining, she couldn’t stop talking about this wonderful project she and Jean were going to embark on. They then called Ellen W to explore the possibility of writing about Harry mainly from the memories of his remaining living children and others of us. When Linda called to tell me that Jean and Ellen were coming to town and what they were planning to do, I volunteered to do whatever is needed which includes maintaining this blog which is intended to keep everyone apprised of our progress.

More on our preparations will be added to the main page later.  — Ellen Campbell