My grandfather Harry Hannon was a Russian Jew, who managed to escape the violence and turbulence of Communism as a boy by sailing on a ship for America.
His Russian name was changed on Ellis Island (I’ll never know the original), but Hannon sounded pretty good. As he made his way south, he learned to tone down his “Jewishness” and mingle with country bumpkins.
He became interested in plants, roots, and flowers. He loved the warm weather of Mississippi, or so I was told by my grandmother who carried on a torrid affair with him as an 18-year-old girl while Harry was in his forties.
Settling in the town of Brookhaven, he made liniments and “cures” for muscle aches and “piles.” They were all plant-based recipes that he had brought with him from Russia, and they worked.
Soon, he was known as the “Indian Doctor” because of his Russian-Jew proboscis and dark complexion. Some called him the “Witch Doctor” and others just called him Doctor Hannon.
Today, we would call him a holistic healer. But he was more than that. Not only was he an exemplary businessman, he would often lay hands on his patients and pray with them. Sometimes he would warn them about serious maladies that would come to pass, leading them to visits with specialists. He would be correct.
Some physicians in his county decided enough was enough and filed suit against “The Indian Doctor,” who was receiving patients at his home while cars were parked from all over the southeastern United States.
But when the judge entered the courtroom and saw Dr. Hannon, he realized it was the same man who had successfully treated his elderly mother with holistic remedies. The judge canceled the case entirely.
Eventually, my grandfather moved into Brookhaven’s only mansion. He kept an old but certified physician in the office just in case anyone complained, and he sold a liniment in a brown bottle called Hannon’s Rub. It would be applied to one’s skin and then compressed with rags or towels for an hour or so to help a nagging muscle ache.
The cure for “piles” or hemorrhoids was a cream he would dab on a small rag tied to a stick in his office. The cream had a camphor odor, and would be applied after the patient “dropped their britches.” Eventually, his brother sold that recipe to a major drug company for a lot of money. Harry and his brother never spoke again.
During those days there was a major World War, and Harry Hannon was very aware of the consequences pressed upon the young men of Brookhaven and Mississippi, his adopted state.
He would go to the training camps and invite a number of them to his home on a regular basis for dinners. He spared no expense. If some young man was walking to a training station, he would drop everything and drive him there.
Harry also kept a running tab at Brookhaven’s clothing store for those men who came home from the war with little to show for their time overseas. He would send them to the men’s store, tell them to get a new suit and shoes, and to put it on his account.
Sadly, I never knew my grandfather. I was fortunate enough to meet a former mayor of Brookhaven who knew him. He was happy to tell me story after story about Harry Hannon for two hours, which seemed like two minutes. He then showed me where he was buried in the Jewish cemetery.
The mansion has been completely rebuilt as a Bed and Breakfast, and there is a Harry Hannon suite for customers. There is even supposed to be a ghost that is my mother, who was 12 when her father passed away.
When they began the build, the Brookhaven Historical Society invited me to speak about my family. I gladly accepted. They had to go and get extra chairs when the time came, because Harry apparently was quite the legendary figure in that city.
People stood in the back during the talk, and they swarmed me at the end with books and pictures of his kids I had never seen before. It was quite an evening, as I only had the stories my mother and her siblings shared of the man who haunted my dreams for so long.
But I know this from the bottom of my heart: Harry would have wanted me to be a career military officer, which I have accomplished. He would have wanted me to give my heart to Christ, which I have done. And he would have wanted me to stand for the Constitution, which the Framers crafted for this beautiful republic he risked so much to flee to from Communism.
Harry Hannon was as brilliant a man that would ever walk the streets of Brookhaven, Mississippi. He breathed free air and demonstrated you could start with your hands and your mind and work yourself into a mansion, feed and raise four children, and share what you had with those who were bound to fight for freedom.
I think that is the core of what this fight is all about: selflessness, courage of conviction, godliness, and doing the right thing.
Convention of States is a movement of people who can’t find it within themselves the ability to turn their backs on their fracturing republic.
COS volunteers are the sheepdogs, who will run towards the burning building to see if there might be one life left to save amid the smoke and the embers. While others watch the riots and the looting, we’ll be peacefully stepping into the fight to save the republic.
Are you a sheepdog? Harry Hannon was. And I believe he wants me to be one today amid the peaceful fight for a leaner federal government that serves the people, not the elites.
This is our moment to stop the wasteful spending and remove those who would foist more regulations upon the backs of small businesses--the true and honest revenue generators in this republic.
I’m not asking you to flee your old country, hop a ship, and start afresh in Brookhaven, Mississippi. I’m simply inviting you to join our fight by asking others to sign our petition and provide their talents where needed to call a Convention of States.
This is going to happen, and some very surprised bureaucrats and oligarchs are going to find themselves somewhere else to ply their trades. In fact, you might consider running for Congress in a few years.
Be a sheepdog. Be like my grandfather Harry.
