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59

Del finally dropped out of the club on the grounds of being obliged to cut down on her activities.  That pretty well ended any contacts we had with them but we run into them here and there occasionally, the last time being out at Kontis Restaurant where they were having lunch with old Norman Wilson, now over 90 but very fit and spry-looking.  Nor did I think that Hal and Del had aged greatly.  They have always remained very friendly when we do see them and on this occasion, they stopped by our table for a greeting on the way out.

Next to Hal Wilson is [[underlined]]Mary Bush[[/underlined]] and it is presumed that her husband, [[underlined]]Fred[[/underlined]], took the picture.  Fred had a rather strange business career.  When we first knew them, he was vice president of the Nubone Corset Company in Erie.  However, he was also an ardent amateur photographer, a real expert at it including cameras.  So he decided the corset business hadn't sufficient charm to claim 100% of his attention and he either bought out or bought into an established photography store in Erie name the Hoffman Camera Shop.  Gradually as far as we could dope it, he eased out of corset manufacturing and into the camera business until the transition was complete.  They had a store on Peach, one in the Boston Store, and one at our West Erie Plaza.  They overexpanded a bit and closed the West Erie Plaza store but kept the other two.  Fred was a semi-cripple in that the knee of one leg bent backward and he was unable to walk normally; also, I think his problem became worse in winter.  So finally after a long period of indecision they moved to Florida on a permanent basis.  Fred was an extremely intelligent guy as was Mary and they were a valuable adjunct to the bridge crowd for many years.  They had a son, Werner, and daughter, Betsy.  Werner was brilliant, went to work fro some ceramic company in Cleveland, was sent to Mexico and then to Brazil, where he now is.  But the Bushes have flown the Erie fold now and haven't returned here even for a visit since moving to Florida several years ago.  We understand that Fred's health is much better down there.

The next two are [[underlined]]Roz and Walt Harris[[/underlined]] about whom a good deal appears in my diary over a 40-year period.  Roz was slightly younger than we while Walt was a dozen years older.  Walt was a GE millionaire or very close to it and was one of the tightest individuals I have ever known, perhaps the tightest.  He was famous for it and proud of it.  He'd done quite well with GE, had horded and shrewdly invested his money, hadn't married until he was in his mid-thirties, and he did things to enhance his fortune that were well night unbelievable even after retirement.  For example, after he retired, he collected state unemployment compensation; when he'd go downtown to collect, he'd wear a laborer's clothes and park his Cadillac several blocks away where no one would be likely to see it.  He like golf and belonged to Kahkwa but refused to rent a locker out there, carrying his gear back and forth or bumming space in friends' lockers like Whitey Wilson or Lew Wengert.