User talk:LHarrison

I am an eighteen year old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. I graduated on May 19, 2005, from North Marion High School, outside of Ocala, Florida, as class Valedictorian. I am a freshman at the University of Florida. I have dreams and ambitions like everyone else. But there is much more to who I am than my current status. To understand who I am, you must look at where I came from and my ancestry. Once you do this, then you will have a better understanding of who I truly am.

Ethnically speaking, I am 50% Czech. I get this from my dad and his side of the family. The other 50%, which I inherited from my mother, is comprised of Irish, French, Dutch, and German descent.

I was born on October 19, 1987 in Orlando, Florida at Arnold Palmer Hospital before it was ever known as such... I believe it was called the Women and Children's hospital of Orlando or something of that nature. My mother went into labor three months prematurely. I was born with a twin brother, Joey, but at slightly over two pounds each, sadly he died the day after our birth. After two months in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) I went home from the hospital, so tiny that I left in a Christmas stocking, and was the first premature baby born at that hospital to go home without a heart monitor.

Baptized Episcopalian, I was brought up in a Catholic manner. My family does not attend church every Sunday, but do believe in, and follow, many of the aspects of Catholicism. Well, mabye not many, but some. I do not disagree with the use of controceptives, pre-marital sex, or even abortion under the right circumstances.

I know very little of my paternal history, aside from the fact that my dad and everyone before him is 100% Czechoslovakian. Because of this, I can only enlighten you on my maternal ancestry, which includes a few revolutionary war patriots and a presidential candidate.

My maternal great great grandfather, John Saul, was born in County Cork Ireland in the mid 1800s. By the 1800's, the potato's role as a staple food soure in Ireland was so great that some of the poorest parts of the country relied on the potato as their only source of food. It was warned by some that dependence on only one crop for food was dangerous, but sadly, these warnings were ignored. A fungus, Phytophthora infestans, destroyed potato plants and was the principal cause of what came to be known as the Irish Potato Famine, devestated the country in the late 1840s. With nothing to eat, many individuals turned to eating weeds and grasses in hopes of surviving. Those who could afford to fled Ireland, hoping for a better life elsewhere. The harsh conditions faced by these immigrants were unimaginable. The crowded and unsanitary conditions on the ships that carried passengers to a prospective better life in America were sometimes known as "coffin ships". No individual was considered to be of a lower social class than an Irish immigrant in America during the 1850s. Immigrants were discriminated against, refused jobs and housing, and many died from malnutrition and disease. My maternal great great grandfather, John Saul, was one of the lucky individuals to survive the trip to America and adjustments that followed after fleeing Ireland to escape this potato famine when he was five years old. He met his wife, Margaret Enscoe, also from Ireland, in the United States when she was eighteen.

My maternal great grandfather, Earl Perrine, was born on August 14, 1902 in Johnson City, Illinois. The second of four children, he married Margaret Mary Saul, born in Leonia, New Jersey on September 9, 1909, in May of 1927. She was the youngest of six children.

My maternal grandmother, Doris Novella Perrine, was born in Englewood, New Jersey on July 31, 1928. She lived in City Island (Part of the Bronx, New York) until she was 12 1/2 years old. She then moved to South Orange, New Jersey. She married my maternal grandfather, Lawrence Henry Dunn, when she was seventeen in May of 1946. She moved to Orlando, Florida at a time when virtually no one know of the city which has become such a tourist attraction. Together, they had seven children, including my mother, Laurie Patricia Dunn.

My mother was born Laurie Patricia Dunn in Cambridgeshire, England, on December 31, 1954. She was the third of seven children. As a young child, she moved quite often as her father served in the United States military. My siblings and I all have different fathers, but that never stopped us from feeling any less love for one another. My sister Nancy is the oldest, followed by Susan, and then my twin brother Joey and myself. Another strange bit of information is that we are about seven years apart, so in a way, it was like we were all only children. By the time I was just a toddler, Nancy was already going away to college in Georgia. My sister Susan lived a troubled adolescence full of internal anxiety and pain. On June 2, 2003, she gave birth to a son, Jacob Alexander, and is to date my mother's only grandchild. My sister's troubled lifestyle and ventricular angulation of the left coronary artery of her heart led to an early death, and sadly, on September 23, 2004, just six days shy of her 24th birthday, my sister died, leaving her son without a mommy, leaving me without a very special part of my life.

The Huguenots are an interesting group of people. As French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church when it was founded in 1550 by John Calvin, the Huguenots more often referred to themselves as "reformers", but the term "huguenot" is still more widely known today. Henry IV banned the use of the word huguenot in the Edict of Nantes in 1598. Extensive research has uncovered that my maternal ancestors (and myself then) are direct descendents of Daniel Perrin ("Daniel The Huguenot"). He was born in 164_ and died after September 6, 1719. My maternal grandmother also uncovered that we are Daughers of the American Revolution (DAR). Nimrod Grace (1825-1903) was born in Perrine, Pennsylvania and served a roll of honor during the Civil War. William Perrine (1753-1839) was a Revolutionary War Patriot. My maternal grandmother and her sister are still in the process of uncovering more information regarding our ancestors' roles in these wars.

My great uncle, Alfred Emanuel Smith, was born in New York City in 1873. He was brought up in a poor neighborhood and the only education he received was grade school. In 1895, at the age of 22, Al Smith was appointed a position as a clerk in the office of the jurors of the county commissioner. It was unusual for someone of such a young age to hold such a substantial position in the community. Al Smith first became involved in politics in his early thirties. He was a member of the New York state assembly from 1904 –1915. During this time, he developed a prominent role in Democratic politics. In 1913 he became speaker of the assembly, and gained a highly regarded reputation for progressive strategies. My great uncle Al was the sheriff of New York County from 1915 – 1917. As if all these accomplishments were not great enough, he was elected president of the New York City Board of Aldermen in 1917. He served as the state governor of New York for eight years, from 1918 – 1920, and from 1922 – 1928. It was during Smith's time that the political machine became known. Characteristics of the machine led to the coining of political terms used today, such as the spoils system and political patronage. Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall were contributing factors in the desecration of the great political machine. In 1928, with the help of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my great uncle Al won the Democratic nomination for president. He was the FIRST Roman Catholic to accept this extraordinary acknowledgment. Violent anti-Catholic prejudice played an important role in the election process, and Smith was defeated by Herbert Hoover. Some believe that the negative publicity of the political machine during Smith's time contributed to his losing of the 1928 election for President of the United States. After losing the 1928 election, my great uncle Al retired from politics, but became the president of Empire State, Inc., the company that built and operated the Empire State Building in Manhattan. He lived out his days peacefully, and died on October 4, 1944.

Other than the few people I have mentioned that are somewhat reputable or famous in my family, I am pretty much your average girl. Where is my life headed? I have no idea whatsoever! I currently attend the University of Florida, majoring in Animal Sciences with a specialization in Animal Biology. I will be withdrawing from UF after this semester, however, to attend Seminole Community College in Sanford, Florida, to earn an Associates Degree in Graphic Design. I then plan to attend the International Academy of Design and Technology to earn a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Computer Design. I am making this drastic change after coming to the realization that I want to live my life for ME, and that by staying at the University of Florida instead of following my heart and passion of computer graphics and digital design, I would be wasting life's more priceless asset - TIME - a gift so precious, no one knows how much we have. I am not too sure who I am meant to be or where my life is headed, but whoever I become and whatever I am meant to do in life is sure to happen, and I am leaving the plethora of roads that lay ahead of me open for exploration.