Nestled along the ever-present traffic on Grand River Avenue and Novi Road is a two acre plat of land, containing the remains of over 1,000 souls. Novi Cemetery, found in 1840, holds some of the area's earliest settlers including the Munro family and their relations. One of them is Brent Harding, buried along side his wife Mary and daughter Emma. Their shared grave marker is inscribed, "They endeavored to do what good they could." His connection to the Munro family is through the marriage his daughter, Bertha Mable Harding to Burton Leavenworth Munro (my great-grandfather) on February 2, 1909 in Novi, Michigan. Brent Harding's life story however did not begin in Michigan nor in the United States. It began in Chesham, England. Among the Munro family papers is a 14 3/4 x 18 1/2 parchment sheet dating from 1854 with the black letter heading, "INDENTURE OF APPRENTICESHIP BY GUARDIANS. - With Premium" (see Sources and Documents). This legal document, once belonging to Brent Harding, paints a bleak story. At age eleven, Brent Harding, with "father and mother both dead", found himself caught-up in England's Poor Law system where church parishes served in tandem with the government to serve the poor, or in Brent's case, the orphaned. Through the intervention of the parish of Alysebury, Brent would be apprenticed by a Ralph Potter in the trade of pluming and glazing. The reverse side of the document is a short paragraph in script which I believe to be a summary report on Harding's character during this time. All was not well. It describes an "estrangement of character," "cunning and dishonesty," and three attempts of suicide, but his "last year with Temperance & sobriety". Harding's grim Dickensian life story doesn't end here. I discovered a narrative of Brent Harding's life in the 1892 Portrait and Biographical Record of Saginaw and Bay City Counties, complete with his lithograph and signature. From an orphaned suicidal teen (which is not mentioned), Harding joined the English navy, nearly circumnavigating the globe, and somehow found his way to Bay City, Michigan in 1873, and became an active worker in the Baptist Church with, as the biography puts it, "devotion to the progress of the Redeemer's kingdom." The epitaph of his grave, "They endeavored to do what good they could" speaks then more than just a throw-away sentiment. Knowing the arc of Harding's life, the sentiment is a testament of a young soul whose life was shattered, veering close to tragedy, but redeemed in the service of others. In this sense, the epitaph is instructive to us the living. In our brief time, may we too endeavor to do the good that we can.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
John A. StempienJohn A. Stempien maintains the blog and website, Family Munro and is the co-editor of The Liberty Hyde Bailey Gardener's Companion. He lives in west Michigan with his family. Archives
June 2024
Categories
All
|