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Harold Mavelly

Harold Mavelly

Harold was born October 10, 1930, the son of John and Margaret Mavelly and passed away November 9, 2016.

He was a graduate of Bennington High School in 1948 and then Renitence University where graduated with a BS degree in education. He was united in marriage to Jane Maxwell in 1950 in Temperance Arkansas. He was first employed by his father at the Mavelly Body Shop. John then stored the contra church in Arietsville. Harold taught history at Bennington High School for 32 years until his retirement. He has been a member of Contra Church since 1975 where he served as a greeter. He enjoyed making candy and gardening and also worked in the press box at the Bennington High School Marauder's Field. He will be remembered as a godly man.

I know that there isn't necessarily good or bad that most people are an in-between. This would be a definition of my grandfather Harold. In the summer from as early as wearing diapers my parents would drive us to Bennington Arkansas to live with my grandparents during the interim break from school. Harold was a very cruel man in the words he would choose to speak. He would time and time again make me cry without condolence.

He was a high school teacher during the 70's which exposed him to a diverse youth and a changing nation resulting in him being very racist towards anyone that wasn't white. He himself had a dark complexion resembling a textbook native American but my parents and grandmother would tell me he used to be white but his skin darkened.

Anyways one term he would use in the presence of us children was anyone he didn't like or who insulted him he would call a "cotton picker," or "cotton picking idiot." He said it so often in our youth that I never really thought it through, but in my adulthood I understood the connection with America and picking cotton. Needless to say I am the opposite of Harold. I don't understand how you can group everyone that has dark complexion into having the exact same traits Individualism is definitely a thing and we have free will to determine our actions. Morals and character guide us, not the difference in the shade of your skin.

Another instance more specific was in the summer of 2011 I was in Oakridge Ohio and had just graduated high school so was out for summer break. I determined my next best move was to go spend the summer with my grandparents at their home in Bennington, Ohio. At this point in my life my family had already lost my childhood home so I was essentially homeless with nowhere to go, so I elected to head to Bennington. It is about an 8-hour drive from Oakridge to Bennington and my grandparents were getting up in age so they couldn't make the full trip, but rather elected to meet 4 hours into it at a central location. Damien drove me the 4 hours while my grandfather drove my grandmother the same and we met at a hotel. By the time I arrived my grandparents had been at the hotel for quite some time so rather than get food I transferred all my belongings from Damien's truck to my grandparent's truck and told them I was going to run in and use the bathroom before we left and his response was "ok, we'll watch your belongings in the back of the truck, if there are any black people around they would definitely steal it." Again I understand youth and the times he grew up in, but my entire life I only heard negatives and hate directed at anyone who wasn't white