This is the story of another individual who was not born in Cortland County but who made a tremendous impact here. Roger Curtis Harris was born on August 31, 1898, to Reverend Theodore Harris and Margaret Elizabeth Schmuck. His life began in Richmond Hill, Long Island, New York, but what we know about Curtis begins when his parents moved to Homer when he was fifteen. Curtis Harris was one of five children in the family, four boys and a girl. Four of the five Harris siblings would serve in the United States military; Curtis and his brothers Morgan and Harold all served in WWI, and his sister Elizabeth served in the United States Army Nurse Corps as a captain during WWII. Another brother, Jaffrey, became a music teacher. Curtis was attending school at the Cortland Academy when the United States entered the war on April 6, 1917. He enlisted right away, and his service took him to France where he saw action in both the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives.
After the war, Harris returned to Homer where he married Marion Frances McMaster on November 1, 1919. Together they would have eight children: Margaret, Theodore, Edith, Rachel, Roger, Jaffrey, Richard, and Diantha. For many years, they made their home at 77 North Main Street. Their property included enough land for a small number of livestock and a large garden which helped keep the Harris family well fed, even during the depths of the Great Depression. The Harris children had access to the Tioughnioga River, and Factory Brook ran alongside their property, affording the children room to run and to grow up having all kinds of adventures.
Curtis Harris worked as a foreman for the Maxin-Starin Company, and later he was employed by Marathon Line. In later years, he was the Town of Homer Justice of the Peace as well as the Homer Village Police Justice. He was deeply involved in our community, serving as a deacon and trustee of the Homer Congregational Church. He was a charter member and post commander of the Burns-McCauliffe American Legion, and he also served as a post commander of the Cortland County American Legion.
Harris was a naturally inventive and curious man, someone who was always busy doing something or learning something. He fell in love with Cortland County and immersed himself in learning about the history of particularly Homer, but he also served as the county historian. Even before he became the county historian, Curtis Harris was always researching and writing about assorted topics of interest. In the 1930s, he authored articles about village happenings called “Lookin’ and List’nin.” He wrote columns for both the Homer Independent and the 7 Valley Villager. Harris gave talks in the community based on his research, and topics ranged from the circus connections in the county to the history of his church. His pièce de résistance was a three-volume work covering various aspects of Homer’s history, including civic affairs, schools, churches, public institutions, business, infrastructure, entertainment, clubs, and military. His work is still used today by researchers and staff at the Cortland County Historical Society (CCHS) as a point of entry for many topics pertaining to Homer’s history.
Curtis was always gathering information, and a box of his papers at CCHS reveals notes written on scraps of paper of all sizes, his small and barely decipherable writing covering every inch of space. Curtis was not only a member of CCHS, but he was also an officer and a real leader in the organization.
If there was something that needed to be done, if Curtis Harris volunteered to do it, he could be relied upon to complete the task. His dependability was legendary as were his problem-solving skills. His contributions to the Historical Society varied. He was an editor and contributor for some of the Cortland County Chronicles books, and for a time he handled the layout for the annual yearbook, a report issued by the Society for decades.
If his research chronicling Homer’s history was his gift to Homer, Curtis Harris’s gift to Cortland County was his dedication and ingenuity when CCHS realized its dream of having a place big enough to house the always growing collection of artifacts and information. At its inception in 1925, CCHS was not going to be a historical repository, merely a club to keep Cortland County history alive and relevant through regularly scheduled talks. But from the start, community members had important historical items they wanted to preserve, and the Cortland Free Library offered some office space for the fledgling organization to preserve the items that came pouring in. By 1930, CCHS had already outgrown the space at the library, but it wouldn’t be until 1937 that the Cortland County Board of Supervisors offered a space within the courthouse, along with funding for the first paid employee of CCHS. Those rooms at the courthouse served the organization for nearly thirty years, until they, too, were full, and the county needed that additional space. At the end of 1963, CCHS member John Chester Birdlebough offered his great grandparents’ house at 25 Homer Avenue to the Society. The offer was accepted, and work commenced on the Suggett House to make it a safe repository for the precious local history which had been entrusted to CCHS.
Curtis Harris threw himself into the work of transforming an ordinary house into one of the most important buildings in the county, the historical archive and museum of Cortland County. Some of the immediate needs included a new roof, insulation, storm windows, and exterior painting to secure the building envelope to create a safe environment for the treasures which would be held within. Work commenced immediately with Harris taking the lead. He became the foreman of the project, soliciting estimates for work to be done, researching the specific needs for a museum, drawing up floor plans, and, with the approval of the CCHS board, signing the contracts to move the work along. While there were contractors doing some of the work, Curtis did plenty of the labor himself. It took just about three years to complete the project and move the Historical Society from the courthouse to the Suggett House.
The Suggett House Museum opened on April 8, 1967, but Curtis Harris was not there to celebrate. He passed away unexpectedly on December 9, 1966. It was a loss felt keenly by his family, friends, and his CCHS family. The 7 Valley Villager had published a thank you to Harris in December of 1965, praising his writing and diligence, sharing that he had never missed a deadline. They took to memorializing Harris immediately after his death, sharing their grief at the loss of their “star writer.” In part, their column read, “Curt Harris was not only a good man, dependable, proud, hard working and a good friend, but he had a keen ability for matters historical for which he was best known. All that he ever accepted either as a job or as a hobby, was done well; there was no other way for Curt.” They continued with, “We regard his departure as a serious and personal loss; at this moment we stand helpless as we attempt to think of anyone else who can take his place in the many fields in which he excelled.”
Curtis Harris came to Cortland County as a teenager, and he fell in love with the area. Instead of letting adventure carry him all over the world, he planted his roots in Homer and created his own adventure by traveling back into Cortland County’s past and sharing all he learned with those around him. Those who knew him well, once again the 7 Valley Villager, had this to say about this remarkable man, “Curt Harris was a man of outstanding character and purpose, the finest hallmarks of good citizenship.” Glenwood Cemetery in Homer is where you will find Curtis Harris, at rest for eternity, in the place he chose to call home. ~Tabitha Scoville, CCHS Director