Famous WW I pilot's surviving daughter has many pleasant memories of her father
Posted Nov 26, 2009 By Jeff Maguire
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Tweet ThisEMC Lifestyle - The following is the remainder of a story which appeared in the Nov. 19 issue of the EMC. Mrs. Margaret Harmon-Brown, the only surviving child of Carleton Place First World War hero Captain A. Roy Brown, was in Carleton Place in late October as a guest of former mayor Brian Costello and his wife Heather.
Looking back at his career the WW I ace's daughter says the person he admired most among his peers was fellow Carleton Place pilot, Captain Stearne Tighe Edwards.
"Dad and Stearne Edwards were huge friends.
"He admired Stearne so much."
Edwards, however, wasn't as fortunate as her father. He died from injuries sustained in a crash on Armistice Day (Nov. 11, 1918).
"Dad didn't talk a lot about his war-time experiences," she says. Not even his fateful meeting with Richthofen in April 1918.
"But there is one story he told me that I will never forget.
"He fell out of an airplane.
"Well - not completely of course."
Harmon-Brown says that on one very memorable occasion her Dad lost control of his aircraft during an aerial duel with an enemy pilot. The aircraft turned turtle, rolling over but continuing to fly straight ahead.
"He was held in by his straps and finally managed to fight his way back into the (pilot's) seat."
Captain Brown regained complete control of the Sopwith Camel aircraft and resumed his battle with the German pilot.
The enemy airman, apparently mesmerized by Brown's upside down maneuvering, hesitated just long enough for the Canadian to gain the initiative.
"He hesitated and Dad shot him down."
Another German who witnessed the encounter apparently thought it had all been part of Brown's plan of attack.
"He later said he had 'never seen stunt flying like that,'" Harmon-Brown laughs.
She adds that her father's view of the enemy was "that they hated the war as much as we did."
Living on edge
The war had a profound impact on Captain Brown's lifestyle his daughter outlines.
"Dad didn't drink (alcohol) or smoke when he left for the war. He came from a very religious family.
"In fact while he was in England he was in very good standing because he didn't drink or smoke."
After arriving in war-torn Europe and flying combat missions, his attitude changed.
"There were no more letters mentioning that he didn't drink or smoke.
"What did it matter when you were living on the edge," she says with a broad smile.
Roy Brown was a very successful pilot and a very strong leader as well.
"Allan Bennett told me that while he was researching his book he discovered Dad never lost a member of the squadron during the time he was leader.
"He was the only one."
In fact it was while going to the aid of squadron member Wilfred 'Wop' May that Brown became involved in the aerial duel which ended with Richthofen's death.
Bennett, by the way, is the Hamilton-area author who researched and co-authored a book on Brown's life. Harmon-Brown was the other co-author. Sadly Bennett died two years ago without seeing the book released. It has yet to be produced although Harmon-Brown is confident it will be eventually.
In 1942, with World War II raging, a then 19-year-old Harmon-Brown joined the war effort herself. Not surprisingly she chose the air force.
Because women were not allowed to have combat roles, she picked the then fledgling radar component of the air force.
"I worked on radar for three years," she recalls, noting that the technology, which played such a huge role in winning the Battle of Britain, was first called "RDF" which meant, radio direction finder.
After the war she worked as a waitress at a resort in the Muskoka tourist region of Central Ontario. It was there that she met her first husband Walter Graham. They were married when she was 26. Sadly he died of cancer at the tender age of 36. The couple did not have children.
It was while staying at another Muskoka resort, with her first husband, that she first met Arthur Harmon, a Buffalo, New York native.
"We all became friends," she remembers, referring to Harmon and the friends he was traveling with at the time.
Following her husband's untimely passing she got to know Harmon better and eventually they wed. The Harmons were married for nearly 47 years, until his death in Arizona 11 years ago last month.
Busy life
The couple had four children, two boys and two girls, and the family traveled the world.
"Art was an executive for Kimberly-Clark (the American paper products giant which is still very much in operation).
"We lived in many American states - South Carolina, North Carolina, Wisconsin - twice and New York State - twice."
The family's most far-flung posting was in Johannesburg, South Africa. "We lived there for a year and a half."
Harmon-Brown left Canada in 1952 and has lived in the United States ever since, outside of foreign postings associated with her late husband's work. She didn't become an American citizen until the early 1990s, but has retained her Canadian citizenship.
The Harmons retired to Sun City, Arizona and it is only recently, following Art's death, that she returned to North Carolina. Her second son Jim and his family (he has two children) reside in Charlotte, N.C.
Eldest son Bob is an executive for computer giant IBM and lives in Atlanta. Daughter Sue, her husband and their three children live in Brentwood, Tennessee a suburb of Nashville.
Harmon-Brown was pleasantly surprised to discover that Carleton Place is twinned with the neighbouring Tennessee city of Franklin.
Tragically her other daughter Nancy, a chemical engineer, died in the crash of a passenger aircraft on Sept. 6, 1985. She was just 29 and was on a business trip at the time of the fatal crash. All 27 passengers and four crew members aboard the Midwest Express Airlines flight perished when the DC-9 crashed shortly during take-off from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
"Nancy had only been married for five months at the time of her death," her mother remembers.
"I have only happy memories of her now.
"I have discovered there are worse things," she says philosophically.
She is thrilled to have five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren and also to enjoy good health in her late 80s.
She didn't even require reading glasses as she and Costello looked through photo albums and examined other historical memorabilia during her recent visit.
Besides wonderful memories of her father, she also has many recollections about her mother Edith who lived to be 93.
"She was terrific.
"Mom was the life of the party. People held dinner parties just so they could have her there.
"She was just 48 when he (Roy) died."
In a conversation with her daughter late in her life Edith Brown told Margaret, "Hell looks pretty good to me now. If I got there I could be the stoker."
As for the Brown-Richthofen duel of 1918, she concurs with those, including Costello, that her father spent the rest of his life trying to elude the spotlight the incident cast upon him.
An enduring memory of both her parents is that, "They hated publicity.
"They preferred to live a quiet life with their family."
Family visits
Harmon-Brown isn't the first member of the famous flyer's family to visit Carleton Place this year.
During Canada Day week Dianne Sample, who is Roy Brown's granddaughter, visited her grandfather's hometown with husband Jim. The couple has homes in Colorado and Maine.
Sample is the daughter of Brown's middle child Barbara, who was a year younger than her oldest sister, Mrs. Harmon-Brown. She of course is Sample's aunt.
Sadly Barbara died at age 67 of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS).
The Samples came to Carleton Place to visit her (Sample's) cousin Carol Nicholson and her husband John.
Carol is the daughter of Roy Brown's youngest brother Howard who died in 1999 at age 96. She and her husband reside in Oakville, but spend summers at the family cottage 'Orkney' at nearby Lake Park.
The Samples and Nicholsons were also guests at a reception arranged by Mayor Dulmage and the new Roy Brown Society. They too were thrilled to hear of the plans for the avionics museum which will include a large component dedicated to Roy Brown.
Roy and Edith Brown's third child, son Donald, died in a highway collision in the 1960s.
As for the ongoing effort to bring Brown's life and the town's involvement in the story of flight to life, councillor Flynn, one of the proponents says, "This story (Brown versus Richthofen) is known around the world. But we (Carleton Place) haven't really done anything with it. We haven't done enough," Flynn argues.
Costello agrees saying, "If anything new about this story ever comes up it is guaranteed to make front page news, around the world, right to this day.
"That is how enduring this is."
