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Windsor ON, 1955 in front of our home on Howard Ave with a dusting of snow on the ground. I'm sure this must have been a Sunday. In that era you were not dressed for church unless you had on a hat. I always loved to copy my mother's Uncle Will (William Harrison), which is why I am using a tiny baseball bat as if it is a cane :-) This photo speaks about a number of things - boys imitating adult male family members, attire of the 1950s, the importance of baseball as THE SPORT of the 1950s. 1955 was the year Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series. Adults were giving African-American and African-Canadian kids baseball bats, baseball gloves, etc to encourage them to be another Jackie Robinson (well, I wasn't quite that, but who could measure up to that standard?).

William Harrison (known to most as "Pa Harrison") was married to a relative on my mother's mother's side of the family and also a brother of early 20th century actor, Richard Berry Harrison. I am copying below some info from Wikipedia, regarding Will's famous brother.
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Richard Berry Harrison (September 28, 1864 - March 14, 1935) was a renowned actor, teacher, dramatic reader and lecturer. He was featured on the cover of TIME magazine on March 4, 1935. The son of fugitive slaves, Harrison was born in London, Ontario, Canada, on September 28, 1864, the eldest of five siblings.

Harrison's parents had escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad. His mother named him Richard after seeing a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III. Her interest in theatre placed Harrison on the way to becoming an actor. In his youth, he worked selling newspapers, and managed to work near a local London theatre where he would try to get to know the actors. Whenever he saved enough money he would attend the plays. His talents were recognized early in recitations that he would give at school and in church.

After moving to Detroit, he began his dramatic studies at the Detroit Training School of Dramatic Art, and privately with British drama coach Edward Weitzel, drama editor for the Detroit Free Press. From 1892 to 1896, Harrison traveled the U.S., performing as a dramatic reader. Harrison’s repertoire included works from Shakespeare, and poetry from his friend Paul Lawrence Dunbar, including promotional tours for Dunbar's book Oak and Ivy' He married Gertrude Janet Washington in 1895; she was the first Black person to graduate from the Chicago Conservatory of Music. They had two children, Lawrence Gilbert and Marian Ysobel.

Harrison became extremely well-known after playing "de Lawd" in more than 1,650 performances of Marc Connelly’s play, The Green Pastures, which opened on Broadway on February 26, 1930. The show ran for 16 months, then went on tour appearing in more than 203 cities and towns (including his hometown of London, Ontario, at the Grand Theatre) and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for playwright Connelly in 1931.

He taught elocution and dramatics courses at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, Branch Normal in Arkansas, and Flipper-Key College in Oklahoma.

Harrison died of heart failure in New York City, on March 14, 1935, 10 days after he was featured on the cover of TIME magazine.

Accolades

- Received the NAACP’s 1930 Spingarn Medal for Distinguished Achievement
- On his 70th birthday in 1934, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Howard University and honorary doctorate degrees in Dramatic Literature from North Carolina Agriculture and Technical College and Lincoln University, and he became the first actor ever to be awarded the Sigma Society Key from Boston University. He had shaken the hands of mayors and received congratulatory telegrams from 14 university presidents and seven governors, was praised by many religious leaders for his performance and was awarded an inscribed Bible from the Clergy Club of New York City
- A public library in Raleigh, North Carolina, was named after Harrison in 1935. In today's Richard B. Harrison Library is also the Richard B. Harrison community auditorium
- Richard B. Harrison High School is named after Harrison at Elm And Mc Haney Streets in Blytheville, Arkansas
- Richard B. Harrison Gymnasium on Noble Street in Smithfield-Selma, North Carolina, is named after Harrison
- Harrison has also received honorary degrees from many U.S. colleges and univerities.
- Due largely to the efforts of documentary filmmaker/ historian Chris Doty, in 2003 an interpretive historical plaque was erected in a London, Ontario, park named in Harrison's honour at the foot of Clarence Street, near where Harrison’s childhood home was before it was torched in a race-related incident, hours after the Harrison family moved to Detroit, Michigan, circa 1880. (Harrison's childhood home was located on Wellington Street (west

Former home of J. Carter Brown and Kitty Kelley

***This address is a single home which was divided, the portion on the left is hidden behind the tree and is the portion of the home in which Kitty Kelley lived***
3035-3037 Dumbarton Ave NW
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John Carter Brown was born in Providence, Rhode Island. His family had been prominent since before the Revolution, providing the initial endowment for what is today known as Brown University. His parents shared a passion for the arts and public service. His father, John Nicholas Brown, served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Truman. While living with his family in Washington, the young J. Carter Brown fell in love with the National Gallery of Art and first conceived of a career that would allow him to pursue his love for all the arts and to share them with a larger public.

Although he was already committed to a career in arts administration, Brown spent his undergraduate years studying history and literature, and acquired a master's degree from Harvard Business School. With this preparation, he immersed himself in the study of art history in Europe, including studies with the renowned art historian Bernard Berenson, and completed a second master's degree in art history at New York University.

In 1961, Brown joined the National Gallery as an assistant to the Director, John Walker. He was appointed assistant director in 1964, and in 1969, at the age of 34, he was appointed Director. He was only the third person to hold this position, and would become the longest serving director in the Gallery's history.

Carter Brown was the first American museum director with a business degree. When he set out to raise $50 million for a new acquisitions fund, he overshot the target and raised $56 million. Even as public funding from the arts came under intense political attack, he induced Congress to increase the Gallery's operating budget year after year, from $3 million in 1969 to $52 million when he retired in 1992. During his tenure, the Gallery's endowment grew from $34 million to $186 million.

Having enjoyed an incomparable exposure to the world of art, and a thorough professional and academic training, Brown set himself a goal of bringing the joys of culture to a larger audience than the hermetic world of connoisseurs and art historians. In addressing the public, the Director always referred to the institution he headed as "your Gallery."

With his special gift for diplomacy, Carter Brown persuaded foreign governments to loan priceless works for visiting exhibitions, and led American collectors to donate their treasures to the nation, including works by Cézanne, van Gogh, Picasso and Veronese. In his 23 years at the helm of the Gallery, he increased the collection by 20,000 works of art, including pieces by old masters and modern giants, from Leonardo da Vinci to Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and Jackson Pollock.

Combining rigorous scholarship with a unique theatrical flair, Brown instituted a series of dazzling special exhibitions. 1977's "Treasures of Tutankhamen," inaugurated a new era of "blockbuster" museum shows. In 1985, one exhibition alone, "Treasure Houses of Britain," attracted almost a million visitors. He also broadened the scope of the gallery beyond its traditional emphasis on European and North American art, with exhibitions of African sculpture, Chinese archaeological discoveries and the historic riches of Japan. Under Brown's leadership, the Gallery's annual attendance rose from 1.3 million in 1969 to almost 7 million visitors a year.

Brown greatly expanded the Gallery's exhibition space, doubling its square footage. Perhaps his greatest triumph was the construction of the Gallery's East Building in 1978. I.M. Pei's angular modern design encountered fierce opposition from traditionalists and preservationists who feared it would spoil the view of the Capitol, but the finished building has become one of Washington's most popular cultural attractions, and one of the most admired buildings in America. Selected as one of the ten best building in America, it ignited an international trend of new museum buildings as innovative works of art. He ended his service to the Gallery on a high note, with "Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration," an unprecedented extravaganza of art from five continents, marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to the New World.

After retiring from the National Gallery in 1992, he continued his crusade to bring the splendors of art to the mass public. He founded the cable television arts network Ovation and served as its chairman. During the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, he mounted a magnificent display of works from every continent and period of human history: "Rings: Five Emotions in World Art."

His service to his a