Palmer Harmon01

Waupaca Record

February 6, 1908

HARMON PALMER FINDS A BROTHER

Finds a Brother He Did Not Know Ever Existed

Is Now Paying Him a Visit

The following article taken from the Dayton Ohio Journal explains how Harmon Palmer of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home here found his brother Cyrus after having been separated form his home for 62 years. He applied for a furlough and is now visiting in Dayton.

That the old world has played some queer tricks on them is the thot of Cyrus O. Palmer, aged 62, 17 Costello Street, and his brother Harmon, aged 78, who saw one another Sunday for the first time in their lives. Harmon, who lives in the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home, recently got into communication with his brother thru a niece who discovered his address, and is now making “quite a visit” in the Dayton (Ohio) home of Cyrus.

Since early boyhood Cyrus had not heard of his brother, who left home as a youth before Cyrus was born. That is, the family talked of him, but his whereabouts was unknown. At last the family learned indirectly that he was in the civil war, but was not able to communicate with him.

“I thot he had passed the Divide in some battle and had given up all hope of seeing him,” said Cyrus Tuesday night. “He left home in April, 1844, and I was born in August. He became a driver on the stage coach routes across New York and northern Ohio, and he liked the wild and free life so well that he never visited home nor wrote to us.

“Harmon joined the First Wisconsin Cavalry and I joined the Twelfth United States Artillery. In talking things over since Sunday we have found that we were very close to one another in several engagements, among which were the Wilson raids. It was an accident that we didn’t meet.”

After the war Harmon Palmer made his home in Dodge county, northern Wisconsin, and later went to the Veterans’ Home. Cyrus settled in Louisville, moved to Michigan for a time, and came to Dayton five years ago.

The chance discovery of the brother Harmon’s address was made by his niece in Crawfordsville, and she wrote directly to Cyrus. Harmon’s eyes bulged large one day when he received a letter from a brother whom he had never heard of and his reply led to the meeting.

“We’re going to keep him here a while, now that we have him,” declared Cyrus. “That is, if the larder keeps full and all goes well with us.”