#Marriage

Susan Harrison

Mark and I have had a handful of genuinely rough stretches over the years -- a supplier price hike in 2008 that had us doing the math at the kitchen table more nights than I'd like to admit, the flood in 2014, plenty of long days where neither of us had much energy left for conversation by closing time. But we always came back around to each other, usually over coffee before the store opened, just the two of us going over the day ahead. This photo from the 2008 harvest festival is from right in the middle of that price-hike stretch -- we look a little worn out, honestly, but we're standing close, and I remember that day as one where we felt like we were in it together, not just next to each other.

Susan Harrison

I'm Susan Harrison, born Susan Brooks in 1964. I married Mark in 1986, fully aware of the debt he'd taken on running his family's hardware store, and for years it was just the two of us behind the counter -- long days, seven days a week, hauling lumber and plumbing stock with barely any part-time help. In 1989 I had a miscarriage partway through my second trimester, and it was a hard, quiet year -- my parents had wanted me to finish university instead of marrying into a small business, and it took them a while to come around, but they did, eventually, and having them back in my corner helped more than I expected. This photo is from a community festival in 1991 -- I was tired in the ordinary way you get from a long week, but happy, too, in a way that does show up if you look closely.

Mark Harrison

I married Susan Brooks in 1986, and we've run the store together ever since. We got through a regional flood in 2014 that put nearly two feet of water through the place -- we lost a good chunk of inventory, but the whole street pitched in to help us reopen within a month, and business actually came back stronger once people saw we weren't going anywhere. We've held our own against the big-box store thirty miles out by doing the things they can't: knowing every customer's name, special-ordering the odd part nobody else stocks, staying open late when someone's pipe bursts on a Sunday. We raised three kids: Jennifer, Ryan, and Noah. This photo is from outside the shop, one of the good ordinary days -- everybody's actually laughing, which is most days around here, honestly, more than people might guess from the outside.

Dorothy Harrison

My mother, Dorothy Harrison, was born Dorothy Hale in 1940, and for most of her life she was the steady one in the family. She worked part-time at the town library for almost forty years, shelving books and running story hour for the local kids, and she married my father in 1960 after what she always described as an unremarkable, drama-free courtship. This photo is from a studio downtown in 1972 -- she hated sitting for it, said the stool was uncomfortable and the light was too harsh, and you can see it in how stiff her smile is. Compared to Dad, her twenties and thirties were genuinely calm. No debt, no layoffs, just a quiet, predictable life most families in our county would have envied.

Arthur Harrison

My father, Arthur Harrison, was born in 1938 on a small farm at the edge of the county. His own father was hurt in a farming accident when Dad was twelve, so he left school at fourteen to keep the family afloat, and at eighteen he walked into town and talked his way into a machinist job at the plant that made train parts. He married my mother, Dorothy Hale, in 1960, and for over twenty years his life ran on a schedule you could set a clock by: up at four thirty, coffee and toast, ten hours at the lathe, home after dark covered in metal shavings. This photo is from around 1974, taken by a coworker on an overtime shift. Dad kept it in his toolbox for almost fifty years. You can already see it in his face -- not exhaustion exactly, just a man who'd decided this was simply what a life looked like.