I remember visiting my grandma and sitting at the counter in her kitchen. She had a wonderful chair we refer to as a “grandma chair” that was counter height but had steps that unfolded for her to be able to get into the seat. My grandmother was not very tall and had bad legs (the toll of years of retail work) so sometimes she needed to sit while she worked in the kitchen.

One time she wrote out her name for me: Margaret Valerie Hilliar Garner. I think we must have been discussing middle names, and my grandmother seemed pleased that she had so many names. She told me her father was adopted, so his original surname wasn’t Hilliar, but Brock. She also told me that his nickname was “Shorty.”

Harold died before I was born but it absolutely tickles me that the grandchildren who did know him referred to him as “Grandpa Shorty.”

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1. Onlinephotofix.com, restoration of Harold Hilliar, 2022, digital image, c. 1920, author’s files.
2. Hilliar-Bannish wedding, digital image, 1924, author’s files.
3. Onlinephotofix.com, restoration of Hilliar family, 2022, digital image, c. 1947, author’s files.