Marian Harrison lost two husbands and raised seven children. A child of the Depression, she remembers being part of the only black family in Arlington. She’s seen a lot — and she’s seen enough.
What she saw last week, news of an Arlington house spray-painted with a racial slur and a swastika, left her dismayed. Whatever the story behind the vandalism on Sept. 23 at a house under construction, Harrison said the bottom line is this:
“No one should have to be afraid of their neighbors.”
“People need to get along,” she said. “Nobody lives in this world by themselves. Don’t say ‘white community’ or ‘black community.’ Those days are gone. We need to be an integrated community.”
Harrison’s community ties run the gamut, from Democratic Party politics and membership at Arlington’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church to working at Arlington High School for years as a teachers aide and custodian.
She lost her first husband, Lyman Lewis, in the Korean War. Van Harrison, her second husband, died in 1989. All seven of her children — Lyman Jr., Janelle, Thomas, Sharlynn, Vanna, Beth and Theresa — graduated from Arlington High, and most of them went on to college, said Harrison, who now lives north of Marysville.
Harrison won’t say that she or her children, who range in age from 47 to 57, never encountered racial prejudice or hatred. What she will say is that they were always involved, always a strong presence at school and in the community.
“I was in the school every day, and got along quite well with kids,” Harrison said. Her children were busy with sports or music.
“Six of my seven kids played in the band or sang in the choir. If somebody got out of line, you didn’t settle a fight with your fists, you settled it with your mind,” Harrison said.
In 2004, after a cross was burned outside the Arlington home of Jason Martin, a black pastor, Harrison said she marched in a rally to show support for Martin and for diversity in Arlington. She suspects the recent vandalism may turn out to be “some big prank.” The owner of the defaced home, Tim Dehnhoff, told The Herald that the general contractor’s son is of mixed race.
Although she’s seen great strides in civil rights, Harrison said that in some ways she had it easier growing up than her children did.
“And my older kids had it easier than the younger ones. I still have friends in Arlington who knew me as a child,” she said. “But as Boeing workers and other new people moved in, there was a whole different element in north county. People should have been more enlightened.”
Her Snohomish County heritage goes back generations. One ancestor, William Stewart, was a Union soldier in the Civil War and one of the first black men to live in the county. In Everett, her great-grandmother had a store on Everett Avenue near a long-gone drawbridge over the Snohomish River. She sold candy and other goods to mill workers.
Harrison was born at Everett’s Providence Hospital in 1931 to World War I veteran George Norwood and his wife, Glenna. “My father was from the South, my mother from Illinois, she was a prairie brat,” she said. The family had a farm on Jordan Road near Arlington. “They had milk cows and a huge orchard. My mother had a big garden,” she said.
Now, the rural place of her childhood is changing fast. “There are mansions out here in the woods,” Harrison said. At the same time, she said, “people have a right to be where they can afford to live. A lot of people have stayed in Arlington because of the Navy.”
Since 1994, Harrison has been involved in the Snohomish County Health and Safety Network, a grass-roots organization aimed at preventing youth violence and substance abuse. It’s supported by the Washington State Family Policy Council, Snohomish County Human Services, the National Crime Prevention Council and other agencies.
While other school districts in the county are involved, Harrison said she’s disappointed Arlington isn’t active in the Health and Safety Network, which she said addresses “low community attachment” in young people.
“Arlington has not taken a whole lot of part in it. After the cross burning, there was a respect program at school. But if you don’t involve parents, it’s a one-sided affair,” Harrison said. “All my kids went through things. They were called names, and some people could not be nice to them.”
Today, though? A swastika and the ugliest racial slur?
“It makes me wonder what is going on,” Harrison said.
Amen, it does.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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