LAHARPE — It’s only a myth, Harry Lee Jr. said Saturday, that there were grooves in the highway left by his mother’s dragging fingernails when she reluctantly moved to LaHarpe from Kansas City in 1951.
But it didn’t take the late Violet Lee long to find LaHarpe much more suited to her lifestyle, her son recounted, to the point she would have been more likely to leave grooves in the highway had she been asked to move back to the city.
The younger Lee spoke at a celebration Saturday at the LaHarpe City Park to mark the family’s 75th anniversary as owners of LaHarpe Telephone Co.
Harry Lee Sr., who had worked for a switchboard supply company in Kansas City, was spurred to find a different lifestyle after the Lees’ eldest son was killed.
He found the LaHarpe Telephone Company up for sale, and acquired it in 1950, while still doing business in the city.
But the Great Flood of 1951 destroyed the Lees’ home in the city, and forced the family to move to LaHarpe, regardless of Violet’s objections.
Since then, LaHarpe Telephone has seen a slew of changes in telecommunications, going from the days when telephone lines would be connected via trees along some roads and streets to the fiber-optic optic world of today.
Harry Jr. and wife Joyce served up cake and ice cream for the attendees.
Several prize drawings were a part of the festivities as well.
Harry Jr. said Saturday was the ideal date for the celebration because it would have been his father’s 115th birthday. Harry Sr. died in 1980; Violet in 2011.
