Meditation in Memory of Harriet McMahon
November 16,1942 – July 23, 2025
The Reverend Dr. Karen Crawford
Smithtown Cemetery
Sept. 12, 2025
Not long after I began serving our flock, Harriet’s family contacted the church. They were emptying out the home in Saint James where Harriet had lived for many years with her husband, Harold.
“Did anyone in the church or community need a table?” they asked.
By chance, my family and I didn’t have a kitchen table at the time. We were eating in our dining room for all our meals. But I wanted to be able to eat our informal family meals in our kitchen so that we could look out onto our deck and watch the birds and other wildlife in our backyard as we ate. Like Harriet, I am an animal lover.
I asked about the table. Next thing I knew, I was visiting Harriet’s home and loading up my sedan with wooden chairs, cat pillows, and, of all things, a working fan in the shape of a cat! It still works! We went back later with our SUV and my young adult son, Jacob, to help move the table and small, matching hutch, just the right size for our space.
I was so happy and grateful for the generosity of Harriet and her family! I still am, every time I see their gift. They told me, when I said this, that Harriet was happy knowing that the new pastor of the church that she loved wanted her table, where she had enjoyed countless meals with her husband and other family and friends over the years. This was even before I met Harriet, for she had already moved into a senior care home.
After Harold went home to the Lord in 2021, Harriet wanted to continue to live in their home, where perhaps they had lived since their marriage in 1980. But as her health became increasingly fragile, there came a time when she was no longer able to live on her own, even with caregivers coming to help during the day.
Later, I visited Harriet at the senior living community with June Auer, a longtime friend of Harriet’s from the church. And when I saw the cats on her bedspread, and the many cat knick-knacks and other decorations in her room, I felt like I had already known her for a while. She told me about her last cat and I think she showed me a photo. She missed him, but knew he was doing well in Michigan with her grandson, Kevin. Her cat’s name was Banjo, named for the instrument that Harold played. Patty, Kevin’s mom, tells me that Banjo, a handsome, well-cared for cat, lived to be 21 years old before he passed in January of this year.
The day that I visited, I learned about Harriet’s love for music, and her amazing gift as a pianist! She talked about playing piano at the senior community where she lived. She even had people singing with her. I am sure it brought back happy memories of Harold, maybe even helped her feel as if Harold was still with her. For the two of them, he with his banjo, used to travel to bring the joy of their music to senior care homes, much like the one where she had just gone to live.
Harold and Harriet called themselves the “Ivory Strings,” and played not only for nursing homes and family gatherings, but for their church, for parties, and at restaurants. Their material ranged from hymns, such as “How Great Thou Art,” to Dixieland/folk/Americana tunes, such as “O Susanna” and the song, “Secondhand Rose,” written in 1921 for Fanny Brice.
Her family shared that Harriet had been playing since she taught herself songs on a miniature piano when she was 4. Her parents bought her a full-size piano when she was 10, and she could play just about any song that she heard. She knew the words to 100s of songs!
Just before she moved to Michigan, June and I visited, again. I hugged her and said a prayer of blessing. I told her, once again, that I was grateful for her gift of the table and chairs and the beautiful matching hutch, just the right size, where I keep my grandmother’s dishes. I showed her photos of my kitchen, with my own orange cat, Liam, naughtily posing on the table, and she smiled. She was sad to leave her church and her friends, and was anxious about the move, but she had had more struggles with her health. She needed more care than the senior living community on Long Island could provide.
Off she went to Michigan with Patty, about 2 and a half years ago, to a new senior living community with more skilled nursing care and eventually was moved to a memory care unit. The piano that her parents had bought her when she was 10 went with her to Michigan!
I don’t know if Harriet remembered us as her memory loss progressed. But I am here to assure all who are gathered that Harriet’s church never forgot her. She has remained on our mailing list for our newsletter, One Body, One Spirit: Connecting the Faithful, along with my weekly messages, posted at my blog. We sent her birthday cards and Christmas cards.She has remained on our prayer list. And whenever there have been updates from Patty that information was shared during our joys and concerns during worship.
Today, after our service here at Smithtown Cemetery comes to a close, the ladies of the church, led by June, will host a lunch in her honor for her family and church family. It will be a time of sharing food and table fellowship and loving memories of Harriet.
To be honest, a day didn’t pass that I didn’t think of her—and I’ll tell you why. It wasn’t just because her name was on our prayer list. I had her table, chairs, hutch and cat-shaped fan in my kitchen to remind me daily of the generosity of my faithful, cat-loving, musical friend.
This is what we believe. With Harriet going home to be in our Lord’s embrace, she has joined with all the saints in the Great Cloud of Witnesses that is now cheering us on as we try to persevere and run the race of faith. This is in a day and age when fewer people feel a strong connection with church and the Triune God of our faith, so it truly is a challenge for we Presbyterians, who have always been seen by the world as a peculiar people. I believe Harriet and Harold, with their unique personalities and gifts, fit right in with us at the little, historic white church over yonder with the clock tower and bell ringing on every hour. Now, though she is no longer physically present, she is more connected with the church that she loved more than ever before. Harriet joined the congregation in 1972 and became ordained and served as a deacon beginning in 1982. She is spiritually present with us now and every time we celebrate Communion at The Lord’s Table and partake of the bread and cup.
Today, we will comfort one another with the words of David the shepherd boy to Psalm 23 in the King James, especially when we say this part with gratitude for our blessings:
“My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
The one thing that makes me sad is that we have no one to play music or sing on this day as we give thanks to God for the precious gift of Harriet’s life and lay her to rest beside Harold. If I were to choose a song to sing here at the grave, I would choose, “How Great Thou Art.” Coincidentally, I just learned from Patty a couple of days ago that this was one of her favorite hymns.
The original text to “How Great Thou Art” came from a poem by a Swedish preacher named Carl Boberg. He was inspired to write the words after experiencing the presence of the Lord while visiting a beautiful country estate on the southeast coast of Sweden.
Boberg said of the experience,
It was that time of year when everything seemed to be in its richest colouring; the birds were singing in (the) trees and everywhere. It was very warm; a thunderstorm appeared on the horizon and soon there was thunder and lightning. We had to hurry to shelter. But the storm was soon over, and the clear sky appeared. When I came home, I opened my window toward the sea. There evidently had been a funeral, and the bells were playing the tune of “When eternity’s clock calls my saved soul to its Sabbath rest.”
That evening, he wrote the song, “O Store Gud,” or “O Great God,” published a few years later in 1886. The poem would be matched with an old Swedish folk tune and sung in public for the first-known occasion in a church in the Swedish province of Värmland in 1888.
Here is a literal translation of the hymn’s first verse and refrain:
O great God, when I behold that world
You have created with your omnipotent word,
How your wisdom guides the threads of life,
And all beings are fed at your table:
Refrain:
Then my soul bursts forth into praise:
O great God, O great God!
Then my soul bursts forth into praise:
O great God, O great God!
You and I, we look forward to our glad reunion with Harriet and Harold and all the saints, when Jesus returns in glory for His Church or when we join our family and friends who have gone before us to eat from a seat at Christ’s banquet table in the world to come. But if we pause a moment right now and listen with the ears of our hearts, with our soul bursting forth into God’s praise, we can feel the presence of our loved ones with us, here in this place, in the song of the birds and the whisper of a breeze. Harriet and Harold and all our loved ones will remain present with us as long as we hold tightly to our memories and keep on sharing their stories.
As an old Irish saying goes:
Those we love don’t go away.
They walk beside us every day.
Unseen, unheard, but always near.
Still loved. Sill missed and very dear.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal.
Love leaves a memory no one can steal.
Amen.
Sharing God's Love and Grace 