By Angeljean Chiaramida
SALISBURY — When Salisbury police dispatcher Christine Harrison got fire Lt. Tim Oliveira's call on Thursday, she didn't realize it would be the beginning of a family mystery.
"Tim said a man from Utah had been to the Fire Department looking to see if they knew anyone named Harrison," Harrison said. "Tim said 'Yes' because two of my sons are firefighters. The man said he had a scrapbook he found in Vermont that belonged to the family of Russell Clinton Harrison. Tim called my son Michael, who said Russell Clinton was his grandfather."
The black scrapbook, filled with yellowed and crumbling newspaper clippings dating back as far as 1928, chronicles not only the goings-on of the family and friends of the Harrison clan, but also events of the day, including storms, fires, President John Kennedy's inauguration, and even the lives of favorite Hollywood movie stars of the day, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. And a tiny, quarter-inch-wide clipping taped to the front cover gave the scrapbook a home. It led antique dealer and former Hampton Falls, N.H., resident Allen Milbury of Utah to buy it at the Vermont yard sale where he found it.
The clipping reads: "Mr. and Mrs. Russell Harrison have purchased a home in Hampton," with "1946" handwritten in the margin.
No one knows how the scrapbook ended up in Vermont.
Harrison brought the book home to her husband, Wayne, and the unraveling of the mystery began. From what Wayne and his parents, Clinton and Catherine Harrison, can guess, the book was the painstaking work of Waita (Rand) Harrison, wife of Russell, mother of Clinton, grandmother of Wayne, great-grandmother of Michael, John and Gregg, and great-great-grandmother of the newest addition to the Harrison bunch, 12-week-old Ryan, Michael's son.
"Waita kept everything," Catherine Harrison said.
In the book are pictures of Waita and her brothers and sisters as they grew up in Exeter, N.H., and one picture of her son Clinton with his family on a toboggan that became an important clue.
"I have that picture," Catherine Harrison said. "That was on Powow Hill in Amesbury where we went tobogganing."
According to Oliveira, the picture piqued the interest of Milbury, and it led to the book finding its way back to Clinton and Catherine.
"(Milbury) said he lives in Utah now, but he grew up in Hampton Falls (N.H.) and went to school with Clinton Harrison," Oliveira said. "(Milbury) is an antique dealer who travels all over the country and found the book in Vermont. He'd been to a class reunion up here recently, and he spoke with a friend who said Clinton was still alive and living in Salisbury. He wanted to get the book back to Clinton, and we promised we'd make sure that happened."
Milbury left his business card with Oliveira, who passed it on with the scrapbook.
"I'm going to take that and put it in my pocket, and I'm going to give him a call," Clinton Harrison said.
And modern technology is going to make sure the crumbling scrapbook that finally found its way back home isn't lost to the ravages of time. After Clinton and Catherine Harrison scrutinize every bit, their grandson Michael Harrison and his wife, Corie, are going to scan important clippings into the computer and put them on a disk, so the family will have its history safe for generations to come.
