Harris House, Rosebank - aka Green Acres

            I photographed this old house on April 16, 1989 just before it was demolished.   This was the home of the Loman Harris family.  In the 1980's it seemed Island Tel had taken over the property and had a central location here.  In the photos you can see piles of clay around the house - these were brought in that spring in advance of demolition.  

            The house was located on the east side of the Western Road (Rte.2) in Rosebank, about 400 metres south of the Foy Road.  Rosebank is located between Elmsdale and Bloomfield corner.

            Note the Green Acres sign above the front door - the Harris children named their old home and sealed it with a sign.  As kids my siblings and I thought this was funny.  Between 1965-1971 there was an American sitcom on TV that we watched weekly called Green Acres - about a New York lawyer who drags his glamorous wife to a ramshackled house in the country to take up farming.  

 

            The following information is from -  Wandering Back: History of Dock, Hills River, Mill River and Rosebank.  Published by the Three Rivers Historical Society in 1983.  Page 332 -

            In 1949 Loman Harris bought this house, which had once been the post office at Mill River East, from Fred Metherell of Mill River.  Lester Wallace of Cascumpec hauled the building three miles to Rosebank, settling it on a lot next to the farm of Vernon Ramsay.  The house was over one hundred years old and proved to be a solid one: it took six trucks and five tractors to move it; neighbours donated their vehicles and labour to help a new neighbour, amoung them were Jake Hardy, Frank Hardy, Warb Murray, Jake Murray, Doug Horne, Jacob Murray, Erskine Wallace, Bill Bell, the Warren Brothers and Ross Meggison.  Also, the men prepared a foundation of stones.

            John *Loman* Harris was born in Knutsford, PEI in 1921 to Arthur and Annie Pearl (MacNeill) Harris.  Loman married Louise Helen Saunders, dtr of Thomas and Rosella Ivy (Parker) Saunders of New Brunswick.  Loman and Louise had seven children: John, Charles, Blair, Jacqueline, Nancy, Sharon and Rose.

            The Harris family lived in “Green Acres”,  as the children had named the house, for five years, while Loman made a living by trucking from Curran and Briggs and driving the  Island Bus from Tignish to Charlottetown.  In 1956 the family moved to Toronto, Ontario and later settled in St. John, New Brunswick.

            In May 1980 Loman died while driving his truck through Unionvale (on O’Leary Road between Woodstock and O’Leary).

             PS.  I came across these photos this evening and decided to post them, not knowing much more than it was an old abandoned house when I was a kid.   I called my parents to ask them if they knew who had lived here (they live two communities over) and sure enough they knew right off, the Harris family - they also thought after that for a short time a Gallant family had lived here.