Parents seek to move son’s remains closer to their home

Dec. 29, 2006
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon@fredericknewspost.com

   FREDERICK— Family bonds may endure through decades and across miles, but Madeline Harris wants her family to be together, even after death.
     When Ms. Harris and her husband Donald retired six years ago to a town 180 miles southwest of Frederick, their son Douglas Eugene Harris stayed behind.
     Douglas was buried more than 28 years ago at Mount Olivet Cemetery. He was 14 when he died Feb. 20, 1978, from complications related to cerebral palsy, a condition that affects muscle control.
     Ms. Harris, 66, requested permission in November from the Office of the Maryland Attorney General to move the body of her son to Millboro Christ ian Church Cemetery in Millboro, Va. The decision is pending, she said. The Harrises have been unable to visit his grave since moving to Millboro six years ago, but they hope Douglas will be able to come home in early January.
     “He was just a happy child,” Ms. Harris said Thursday. “He couldn't walk or talk, but he liked watching television, especially country music shows.”
     The songs and elaborate rhinestone outfits on “The Porter Wagner Show” made Douglas' eyes light up.
     “Anything that moved on TV caught his attention,” Ms. Harris said. “But the Porter Wagner Show would make him smile and laugh — he really seemed to enjoy it.”
     Douglas was her only son, but he has two half siblings from Mr. Harris's first marriage. Jeffery Harris lives in Sterling, Va., and Edyth Fox lives in Carlsbad, N.M.
     Ms. Harris, a Middletown native, retired in December 2000 after working 27 years sewing inside linings for apparel manufacturer Hartz & Co. After working for 47 years as a foreman for construction company Richard F. Kline, Inc., Mr. Harris decided to move to Millboro on a friend's recommendation.
     “It's just so quiet and beautiful here,” Ms. Harris said. “It's mountains and a very small community.”
     Supermarkets and traffic jams are unknown in Millboro, she said. Bath County, which has about 5,000 residents, doesn't even have a single traffic light.
     While Ms. Harris misses some things about Frederick County, she doesn't miss rush hour.
     “This is so much more peaceful,” she said. “We don't have traffic or anything like that.”
     After settling in to their new home, Mr. and Ms. Harris bought burial plots from their church. When they thought about lying together for eternity, they couldn't bare to be without Douglas.
     She misses placing flowers on his grave for his birthday, June 4. Every Christmas, she would decorate a miniature Christmas tree and place it near the marker.
     “I know he's not there, he's in heaven,” she said. “I just want him to be close by.”