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Centennial One hundred years ago, May 24, 1902, Harry Greene was born. He died at eighty-five, fifteen years ago. We, his family, wanted to tell a few Harry Greene anecdotes Dad would always send the kids a birthday card with a dime taped to it. Recently I was at son Ron's house, and lying on his kitchen counter was a birthday card from his brother, Mike. I opened the card, and there was a dime taped to it. I'm so glad that Michael is carrying on the tradition. Harry
Greene's mother, "Nanny", was born two weeks after the
boat got to New York from Ireland. L.C., my husband, and I visited
Ireland several years ago. We heard a tape of an Irish comedian
while we were there taking a bus tour. One of the other passengers,
a fellow American, said, "I have never heard any of those jokes."
I said, "Are you kidding? I've heard every one." We called
them "Harry Greene jokes". DAD May 24, 2002, is the 100th anniversary of Dad's birth. I remember how he knew when certain flowers, trees and bushes bloomed; probably because he always had bees and knew when to move them for certain kinds of honey. Dad knew when the blackberries were ripe and where to find them. He also took me with him when the huckleberries and blueberries were ripe. I always managed to pick enough so Mom could make a couple of pies. Dad
told me that when I heard the whip-poor-will call after winter there
wouldn't be any more cold. I heard one tonight. It was about two
months late. It was 90 degrees today. I still thought of Dad. Ivan's
(Ivan, oldest son of Mildred & Harry Greene) oldest daughter,
Alberta once said, "Grandpa would make a good general. He gets
up early (5AM) and gets everybody up and busy, and then he goes
out on the front porch, sits in the swing and goes to sleep."
GRAMPS RE: Harry Greene centennial 5-24-02 FROM: David Ivan Mack - My mother, Janet Thelma Greene Mack, asked me to gather stories about Gramps and forward them to you. Attached also is a picture of the old gent. (I created a version with a speech balloon that showed him saying, "Where'd that alligator go with my arm?!?" but my wife declared it in bad taste. My mother roared with laughter and said it sounded just like him) Harry Greene was born 5-24-02. (OOPS! Y2K compatibility is "05-24-1902"!) For the May 24, 2002, centennial of his birth, the grandsons of Harry Greene remember him: From David Mack (son of Janet Thelma Greene Mack):I remember Gramps Greene as an altogether common man - in the best senses of that phrase. He was unpretentious, and unassuming, and always a delight to be near. As children we always looked forward to the trip from Michigan to Florida to see Gramps and get some of those Florida grapefruits he always sent home with us out of his orchard. There were always the family get-togethers with Uncle Ivan (William Ivan Greene), Aunt Corky (Cecelia Greene), Uncle Brian (Brian Greene), and Uncle Eddie Greene. I loved to hear Gramps talk about "sarsaparilla" and "sassafras tea" and "Sarasota Springs", slurring the "s's" in his own unique Southern accent. I know people who are pretty highfalutin' about their ancestry; for me, I have always proudly declared that I am the descendant of Irish potato diggers (that's Gramps Greene), and Scots-Irish lowlanders (from the other side of the family tree)! From Ron Mack (son of Janet Thelma Greene Mack):Grandpa Greene would always say "None but her" when someone asked for the butter. Then, as he was handing it to you, he would do so in a such a manner that it collided with your thumb all at the last second and then it would get butter on your hand. From Michael Mack (son of Janet Thelma Greene Mack):I remember a few stories. I was about 5, and we were at the Big Boy restaurant in Owosso, Michigan. I wanted a piece of strawberry pie. (You know, the big pieces that have the HUGE Strawberries in that demi-glaze filling.) We had already eaten lunch, so Mom didn't think I needed a big piece of pie for dessert. Besides, it was kind of expensive. But, despite not having much money, Grandpa Greene bought it for me,and I surprised everyone (including myself) by eating all of it.Then there was the time that Grandpa Greene came to visit in thewinter, and we went sledding by the Shiatown dam, near Vernon, Michigan. Him being from Florida, I don't suppose he had done this type of thing too much. But he was a trooper, and he even went down the dreaded Suicide Hill. I have this vivid memory of seeing him rolling down the hill, snow flying, after he hit a bump and flew off the sled. I guess maybe it takes two hands to hold onto the sled when going down Suicide Hill. My memory isn't the greatest, so I imagine that others may be able to embellish these stories a bit.
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HARRY GREENE by Cecelia Greene "Corky" Wofford reprinted from Bryburcon.com First Edition Dad was born William Harry Greene, May 24, 1902, in Tampa, Florida, to Jenny E. and William P. Greene. Dad had a sister Mae. I think she was the oldest. When Dad was 5 years old Nanny went to the store to get some buttermilk for biscuits. While she was gone Dad decided he was hungry and would fix his own supper. They cooked on a kerosene stove. When the burner wouldn't light Dad decided the stove needed kerosene and proceeded to fill the tank. He was wearing a brown and white check long sleeve shirt. He got kerosene all over the left sleeve of his shirt. When he went to light the burner of the stove he set himself on fire and ran out the front door screaming. His grandmother lived next door and heard him. There was a pump and bucket of water on her front porch. She grabbed the bucket and threw the water on Dad to put the fire out. Dad had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his left arm and upper torso. Dad's arm shriveled up and he couldn't unbend his elbow. Dad had a crippled arm until he was in his sixties and got cancer in his arm. They cut off his left arm and shoulder to get all the cancer. He was then affectionately known as, "the one armed bandit". I don't know how or when Dad met Mom, but they were married when he was about 26 and Mom was about 20. Dad was a bookkeeper for a meat packing company, and Mom was a private secretary for a lawyer. About 3 years later Mom quit her job when she was 6 months pregnant with me, and soon after Dad lost his job. They started a dry cleaning business from their home in Avondale, which is a subdivision south of W. Hillsborough and MacDill Avenues. When we were little, before we started school, Mom would dress one of us up each day, and Dad would take us to work with him picking up and delivering clothes for the business. I can remember going all over Tampa, Davis Island and Hyde Park, to the police stations and fire departments. Dad knew everybody. I can remember Dad sliding down the fire pole at a downtown fire station. The firemen would be cooking lunch, polishing the fire trucks and maintaining the fire equipment. If it was early enough not to spoil our lunch they would give Dad coffee and cake. I got milk and and cake. I can remember downtown smelling like roasted coffee and baking sweet potatoes. The coffee was companies roasting coffee beans for Cuban coffee, and the sweet potatoes was the breweries making Silver Bar Beer and Tropical Ale. Mom and Dad moved the business into an old gas station on the SW corner of Nebraska and New Orleans Avenues. I went to work in the business during Christmas holiday from school when I was 6 years old. Dad taught me how to operate the dry cleaning machine, tell time and make change for the customers. I got a bad grade in math when I was in the 4th or 5th grade. Mom was yelling at me for making a bad grade. Dad asked me why, and I told him I didn't understand the problems. He told me to pretend it was money and I was making change or a customer had 2 pairs of pants or a suit and a pair of pants. I didn't have anymore problems with math until I got into algebra. I never did get it when it came to algebra. Although Mom and Dad fought like cats and dogs and sometimes made life a living hell for us kids, I believe they truly loved each other. I was standing next to Dad at Mom's funeral when we went up for the last viewing of the body. Dad looked at Mom and said, " Goodbye, Sweetheart"
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reprinted from Bryburcon.com First Edition MY DAD, HARRY GREENE By Janet Greene Mack Harry Greene was born May 24, 1902, in Tampa, Florida, and lived in Florida all his life. When he was nine years old he tried to light a gas stove and caught his left sleeve on fire, burning his arm terribly. Nine doctors wanted to take his arm off, but his mother finally found one who said he would try to save it. They strapped it to a board to straighten it out, but when they removed the board, his arm curled up again. Once they taped it to his side, and it grew to his side and had to be cut loose; a lot of pain for a four-year-old to endure. His arm was always withered, and he couldn’t straighten it out, but it didn’t stop him from getting married to Mildred Burdett, raising five children and starting his own dry cleaning business, where he worked from 5AM doing the book work, to 10PM when he pressed the last of the pants. Once he and I moved a garage with a block and tackle, putting it up on logs and rolling it. In our cedar chest was this little brown checked shirt with the left sleeve burned off that he was wearing when he got burned. When Dad was dating Mom he called at the Burdett home. Aunt Edna greeted him with, "Hello, Mr. Purple." Grandma called her aside. "Edna, don’t you ever call Mr. Greene, ‘Mr. Cripple’ again." To which a subdued Edna said, "I didn’t call him Mr. Cripple. I called him Mr. Purple." Dad was Scotch-Irish, his mother being born in New York City two weeks after the boat got here from Ireland. He had a great sense of humor and loved to joke. I heard an Irish comedian once, and afterward one man commented that he’d never heard any of those jokes. I had heard them all! We always called them Harry Greene jokes, but they were Irish jokes. He also had a temper and could swear for five minutes without repeating himself. Once when I was a toddler Mom had me by the hand, going into a grocery store, past a bunch of men sitting there. A dog was lying on the ground. I said, "Mama, look at that damn dog." That’s what I’d always heard them called, so I thought that was their name. Mom went home and had a little talk with Dad. Until the day he died he confessed to having trouble trying to control his swearing. Once a Mexican friend said to me, "Janet, why aren’t you prejudiced?" I thought awhile, and remembered that Dad always treated everybody the same, whether it was a bum in the gutter or the President of the United States. He taught us the same without saying a word. When Dad was sixty-two he got cancer in his burned arm and had to have his arm removed. That didn’t slow him down much either. He ran the tractor, planted a garden and was a night watchman for an exterminator company. He died when he was eighty-five after a full life. I got to spend a week with him just before he died, and I was so glad because I didn’t go to spend time with Mom before she died at seventy-six.
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JERRY the GOAT and DADDY'S GAS COUPONS by Cecelia Greene "Corky" Wofford reprint from Bryburcon.com First Edition During World War II Daddy bought a little Austin truck to pick up and deliver dry cleaning and laundry to our customers. Mama and Daddy ran the business our of our house and the garage. My sister Janet was a frail child. Someone told Mama that goat's milk might help Janet. Mama's sister, Isabelle, loaned us her nanny goat named Jerry. Our yard wasn't fenced so we staked Jerry out where she could eat the grass. The vacant lot next door had a grapefruit tree on it, so we usually staked Jerry out near the tree during the day for shade. Mama's clothes line was also between the garage and the grapefruit tree. Mama milked Jerry one morning, staked her out and started dry cleaning the women's clothes. One dress had a dickey; that was a popular item during that era. The dickey had some stains that required special attention. Mama hung the dickey on the clothes line to dry. Jerry pulled and tugged and stretched the rope that was clipped to her collar until she could eat one corner of the dickey off. Mama cut the other side of the dickey to match the one Jerry ate and hemmed the bottom of the dickey up. Daddy parked the little Austin truck in the garage at night. That side of the garage had no door. Daddy kept his ticket book on the seat and his gas rationing coupons on a clip board attached to the dash. One night Daddy was so tired that he didn't notice the passenger window was open. Jerry had been chewing on the rope, and that night she chewed it in two. Jerry stuck her head in the open window and ate Daddy's ticket book and the gas coupons. The next day Daddy went to try to get his gas coupons replaced. The man that helped Daddy fill out the forms told him, "That goat nearly put you out of business." Daddy told the man, "You don't know the half of it." The following morning there was an article in the Tampa Tribune about a man having an original excuse for getting extra gas rationing coupons. Rationing coupons were worth more than money during the war. In many cases you were able to buy on credit, but could not buy rationed items without the coupons. It was not to long after this that Uncle Dolphus came to get Jerry and Mama showed me how to make eggnog shakes for Janet.
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