“The spitting image”
A "flood of love" washed over Lauren Harris as she looked at the picture of her great-grandfather in the Museum. “I thought, oh my gosh, there's my dad. They are the spitting image.”
Lauren’s great-grandfather, Dr. Gordon Sydney Harris, was a doctor at Pier 21 during the busy post-war period of the 1950s. It was an important and demanding role. As part of the facility’s medical staff, he would have conducted medical examinations required for immigration, provided care to detained immigrants and occasionally to sick mariners. Medical staff also assessed for infectious diseases and decided who needed to be quarantined.
On a recent visit to the Museum, Lauren saw the photo of Dr. Harris on a panel in the Pier 21 Story exhibition. The photo is displayed in the location of the historical immigration medical clinic. In that very spot, her great-grandfather would have been among the first to meet new immigrants upon their arrival in Canada.
But it was the resemblance to her father, Stewart Harris, that was striking and that made her feel a wave of love.
“He passed away really suddenly in December 2023,” Lauren says of her dad. “He was the best.”
What family history means
Lauren knew her great-grandfather had worked at Pier 21. Her mother, Deb, served and continues to serve unofficially as the family historian, aided by Lauren’s sister, Erica, who formally studied history. Over the years, Deb gathered information and traced a timeline for both her side of the family and her husband’s. She knew that her husband’s grandfather, Gordon Harris, had worked as a doctor at Pier 21, so several years ago, she reached out to the Museum’s research department.
“My mom initiated the conversation on behalf of my dad, being the one who's in charge of family histories. We were trying to find out if they had records of him there.” The Museum sent back a photo, says Lauren, “and they're like, here are three doctors we have not identified. Are any of them Gordon Sydney Harris?”
The image was unmistakable.
“And that photo is now on your wall in the Museum, which is pretty incredible.”
Lauren never knew her great-grandfather, but she knew Edith, his wife, who lived to the age of 103.
The conversations she recalls with Edith reveal a wonderfully naïve curiosity. “In my younger years, most of my questions were like, what was Nana's life like? Did she see the first-ever microwave?”
Lauren appreciates having access to her family’s history, even those whom, like Gordon, she never got to meet.
“It's so lovely to learn about our family's traditions, learn about where we came from. It's all about learning that story of who you are, and how you came to be, and the people that helped pave the way for you.”
Touring through the Museum and seeing the uncanny likeness of her dad in her great-grandfather’s face gave her a feeling of warmth.
“It was just, ‘Oh my goodness, I feel so much love for my family and my dad.’ What a neat little piece of history in our family timeline.”
Lauren, who lives in the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia, works as Director of Corporate Events & Community Investment for Canada Post. Canada Post made a generous contribution to the Museum’s education programs last year, which occasioned a visit by Lauren and Canada Post CEO Doug Ettinger.