My grandfather, John H. Ward
GRANDPA HARRISON WARD
This portrait was painted from a photograph of the subject reading the newspaper near the only window in the center room of the old ancestral brick mansion that served as both dining room and bedroom for my grandfather who lived there alone for 35 years. As a child visiting every summer, I remember how he would doze off while reading, but always wake up again before the newspaper would fall from his hands. He could also multi-task. Often his pet dog Whitie would be at his feet, and he would rub the dog’s belly with his foot while reading and dozing. The reading glasses he wore were said to have been his mother’s from the 1800s. I don’t know that my grandfather was ever fitted for a pair of his own. Both the man and the house are now history.
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