Mable Harwood

Mable Margaret Burton was born in Howard City, Michigan, on November 24, 1912, the third and youngest daughter of Melvin Burton and Elizabeth (Landry) Burton. When she was young, the family moved to Grand Rapids and settled on Sweet Street NE, where her mother opened a boarding house. Mable, as the youngest child, got stuck with the dishes. She never liked doing dishes much after that!

After graduating from Creston High School she worked in a factory, the Globe Knitting Works, doing industrial sewing. It was the Great Depression. She walked all the way from her house on Sweet Street to the Globe, on Commerce Street downtown, a distance of about two miles. In later life she was a good seamstress, always owning a good sewing machine and making many of her own dresses. She had a good voice too, and sang alto in the Plainfield Methodist Church choir.

It was in the choir at Plainfield that she met a young salesman from Cadillac, Michigan who had come to town to make his fortune. His name was Morton Harwood. Morton knew a good thing when he saw one, and it wasn’t long before he asked her out on a date. At this time, Mable was part of a group of unmarried young women who called themselves the “Spinsters Club.” But it was all tongue-in-cheek, and anyway, who could resist the attentions of this good-looking young beau? Morton and Mable were married on November 24, 1938 at Plainfield Methodist Church. One by one, the other “Spinsters” followed suit, until every last one of them was married. How Mable would chuckle as she told this story!

Morton and Mable had four children, all boys. Morton jr., Bruce and Wendell were born within a year or so of each other, and Randall came along nine years later, in 1950. As a newcomer in town and not knowing many people, Morton joined the Masonic Lodge as a way to make business contacts. Mable joined the Order of the Eastern Star and was Past Matron. She was also a member of Palestine Shrine #1. The family first lived with Mable’s parents in a house on Lafayette Street NE across from the Epworth Methodist Church, where they attended. After Mable’s mother died, in the early 1940s, they moved to a big Dutch colonial house on Plainfield Avenue in northeast Grand Rapids, taking her father along with them. This house was the scene of many parties and family dinners over the years, as Mable loved to entertain. Eventually an outdoor pool and a pool house were added, making the Plainfield Avenue house even more of a gathering place for grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Morton established a calendar and advertising specialty business in the 1940s, working first out of the sunroom at home and then purchasing an office building at 10 Crescent Street NE in downtown Grand Rapids. Harwood’s Printing and Advertising Service, as it was called, prospered and all the boys worked there from the time they were young, tinning calendars and printing on an old hand printing press in the basement. While the children were young, Mable stayed at home like most women did back then, but when the children were grown this very traditional lady became a liberated working woman. She served as secretary-bookkeeper for the family business for many years. She rarely missed a day of work—and she retired in 1999 at the age of 87!

The entire family was musical and everyone played an instrument. They even got their picture in The Grand Rapids Press once as the “Harwood family orchestra,” with Mable at the piano. For many years Morton and Mable sang in the choir at the First Methodist (now First United Methodist) Church. The kids sat in the front row where their parents could keep an eye on them from their seats in the choir loft. Mable also sang in the Grand Rapids Symphonic Choir. Music meant a lot to them all, and two of their sons eventually made careers in the music world, Wendell in the musical instrument repair business and Bruce as a high school music teacher in Muskegon and violist in the West Shore Symphony.

Mable had a gift for making people feel welcome. When the children were young she put on fancy birthday parties for them and their little friends, and later she did the same thing for their spouses and children. She was a wonderful cook. She was noted for her apple pies and her cakes, made “from scratch.” For years, she baked several loaves of bread every Saturday so her “boys” could take a loaf home with them when they came over on the weekend. Sundays saw many a family dinner around the table in the formal dining room, and on Sunday evenings family members would gather around the chrome-edged table in the kitchen eating leftover jello and sandwiches from leftover pot roast and listening to Grandpa tell stories. And Christmas at the Harwoods’ was an affair the Grinch would have hated. The tinsel! the tree! the presents! the wrappings! Behind it all was Grandma, making sure everybody felt welcome, ate heartily, and went away with a gift.

In 1998, Morton died at the age of 95. In her later years, hearing and eyesight failing, Mable still loved having her family around her. For the last ten years of her life she carried on alone in the big house, but with visitors almost every day to keep her company and take her out to dinner. The parties and family gatherings continued, but with family members pitching in to do the work, while Grandma sat in a chair or, in summer, out on the deck or in her swing poolside, enjoying it all.

This generous, warm-hearted lady was loved by all who knew her. She will be greatly missed, especially by her grandchildren, many of whom have never known a birthday or a Christmas without her.

God love you, Grandma! Rest in the peace you so richly deserve. We trust you will be spending Christmas this year with Grandpa, and that it will be the best and happiest Christmas you have ever known. We’ll be fine, but it’s not going to be the same without you!

Mrs. Mable M. Harwood, aged 96 of Grand Rapids passed away Wednesday December 10, 2008. She was preceded in death by her husband Morton Harwood. Surviving are her children: Morton Jr. and Diane Harwood, Bruce and Ruth Ann Harwood, Wendell and Janice Harwood, Randall and Ruth Ann Harwood, 16 grandchildren, 38 great- grandchildren, nieces and many friends. She worked with her husband in the family business, Harwood’s Printing and Advertising Service, for many years as the secretary and bookkeeper. She was a Past Matron of the Oriental Chapter O.E.S. and Palestine Shrine Funeral and committal services will be held Tuesday at 1 P.M. at the Heritage Life Story Funeral Home, Van Strien – Creston Chapel, 1833 Plainfield N.E. Interment will follow in Fairplains Cemetery. Mrs. Harwood reposes at the funeral home where relatives and friends may meet her family Monday from 2-4 and 6-8 P.M. For those who wish, memorial contributions to Faith Hospice would be appreciated. To read more of Mable’s life, share a memory or sign the online register book please visit www.lifestorynet.com