Rare Family Photos: Susie could dance ‘The Pony’

This old black and white hangs in my dining room under a picture from my wife’s exciting childhood days. It proves I had my own exciting childhood days, especially when I was five-years old.


[L to R: Gord H., Chick Rose, Susie Rose (foreground), Lannie H. (background), Dale H.

In 1954 (as near as I can guess) Chick and Susie came to visit at my house. Their dad was Chuck Rose, a friend of my dad’s from his ‘navy days’ (1941 - 1945), and the two dads organized a game of scrub in the back yard of my first childhood home in Burgessville.

Please note: The house and sloping backyard still exist, as does the barn on the property, though the current owner, Les Knotts, took the barn apart board by board in the late 1950s, then reassembled it, board by board - by himself - after shifting its position 90 degrees. “That’s so I could park in it,” he said to me, two years ago.

I got pretty excited about what Mr. Knotts told me at the time, but even more about the backyard ball game in 1954. I recall hitting an easy pitch from my dad and sending the ball through a pane of glass in one of our basement windows. It made my day, maybe my whole week!

Really. Something like that has got to make every kid’s day! Because it wasn’t my fault! How cool is that?

Last week, after finishing the second edit of a book about my father’s ‘navy days’, I looked at a small pile of related black and white photos from the early 1940s and thought the following deep and rewarding thought: I should send any photos of Chuck Rose to where they would be appreciated most... to him or his family.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy finding someone whose last visit with my family was in 1958, again, as close as I can guess. All I had to go on were the following snippets of memory: Chuck, Mrs. Rose, Chick, Susie (with red hair, like her mom), Niagara Falls, navy, “The Pony.”

Oh, about "The Pony." At the end of the last visit Mrs. Rose encouraged Susie to dance “The Pony” for my family on our front sidewalk. So, just before her family piled into their car to the Falls, Susie gathered up her courage and danced her heart out. Oh, I now recall a few more things about Susie at the time, i.e., a red face to go with her red hair, pointy knees and elbows - she could have hurt herself - and good rhythm.

I turned to Google and learned there are 17 Roses listed in the online Niagara Falls white pages, and just last week, after talking to a few people about trying to find remaining family members of Chuck Rose, and that I had a handful of old black and whites (One person loved my idea and wouldn’t get off the line; she had 20 questions, at least, and my phone bill will be through the roof!) I had one very stirring conversation.

“Good morning,” I said. “My name is Gord Harrison from London, and I’m trying to locate Chuck Rose, or someone related to Chuck,” I began.

More to follow.

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