"Just a Kid from Brooklyn" was initially written to provide my children and their children with a family history before it was forever lost. I also wanted to leave behind a smooth glide path through life for generations not yet born. This is my story, but it may be everyman's story. It is a story about meeting head-on the challenges and struggles that we face every day and the choices that we make when we are faced with them. Some people use adversity as an excuse for failure-always the victim. For others, failure is an opportunity to try again; you always have another chance. My story is meant to inspire readers to exercise their inalienable right to the "pursuit of happiness," as cited in the Declaration of Independence, whether it's discovery, adventure, achievement, or even money. Just a Kid from Brooklyn A Memoir By Henry Aimer Harrison III AuthorHouse Copyright © 2015 Henry Harrison All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5049-5831-8 CHAPTER 1 Jane and Henry, 1874 It was a warm and sunny June 15, 1874, outside St. John the Evangelist Church in Leeds, England. Inside the candlelit church, Jane Aimer, a pretty, nineteen-year-old seamstress from Lanark, Scotland, married Henry Harrison, a handsome young cabinetmaker from Kendal, England. Jane and Henry are my great-grandparents on my father's side. About a year after their marriage, a daughter was born to the ecstatic couple, but their happiness turned to grief when the seemingly healthy baby girl died suddenly. The cause of her death was never determined. Joy returned to the couple, however, on August 28, 1877, when Jane Aimer Harrison gave birth again, this time to a baby boy. Jane Aimer and Henry Harrison named their son Henry Aimer Harrison after both parents. Henry Aimer Harrison would become my grandfather. The Harrison family lived a hard-working but contented life in Lancaster, England for two years when tragedy struck again. In 1879, when my grandfather was only two years old, his father caught pneumonia and died. Jane Harrison struggled greatly to provide for herself and her toddling son. With the help of family, the kindness of the church, and the generosity of a charitable community, Jane and her son survived the tough times. Exactly when Jane Harrison met Matthew Barnes is lost to history, but subsequently, Jane Aimer Harrison married him. My guess is that Matthew Barnes was quite senior to Jane. Mr. Barnes was a former soldier who had fought in Britain's war with India. He had been wounded in that war and lost a leg and had to retire from the British army. Early in their marriage, the family lived in Leeds, and Matthew Barnes provided adequately for his young wife and stepson. According to my grandfather, he liked and got along well with his stepfather. After several years of marriage, however, Jane became unhappy in her marriage to Matthew Barnes and ran off with another man, leaving young Henry — my grandfather — in Mr. Barnes's care. My grandfather's last residence in England was with his stepfather in a boarding house in Barrow-in-Furnace, England. In the early-to mid-1890s, nighttime lighting was mainly by candle, which created shadows that left corners and floor areas unlit where the candlelight didn't reach. One evening in the year 1894, my grandfather and his stepfather came into the boarding house, and Mr. Barnes bumped the stump of his lost leg against a trunk left by another boarder who was moving out. According to my grandfather, he and his stepfather sat down in front of the fireplace where his stepfather seemed to doze off. It turned out, however, that the wounded leg opened up and Mr. Barnes bled to death without anyone realizing he was injured. At that time, my grandfather was about seventeen years old and was working as a clerk in an industrial plant. Bad times seemed to follow my grandfather. Shortly after his stepfather died, the plant where my grandfather was working caught fire and burned to the ground. At the age of seventeen, my grandfather found himself alone and penniless. There was no social safety net such as welfare or unemployment insurance. My grandfather's mother and other relatives in England decided that Henry Aimer Harrison would live a better life with his uncle, James Aimer, in Ohio — in America. I often wish that I had asked more questions about that stressful period in my grandfather's young life and how my great-grandmother Jane Aimer came back into the picture to determine his future. Nevertheless, in early August of 1895, my grandfather left England from Liverpool on the HMS Germanic and sailed off to America. He arrived in New York Harbor on August 21, 1895. His final destination was Massillon, Ohio. My grandfather never saw his mother, Jane, again; she died in 1898 of a possible brain aneurysm. She was forty-two years old. CHAPTER 2 Young Henry Aimer Harrison, 1895 My grandfather had stated a few times that Massillon, Ohio, in the late 1800s, was like a frontier town. According to m