The stories I heard, tidbits really, were the personal recollections of my mother (now deceased), and Harrison’s wife Sandra (also deceased.)

Here are a few precious personal memories I’d like to share with you. Great Uncle Harry was a world explorer.

- He had a great wanderlust and thirst for adventure. He was comfortable in the world and sought to know the peoples of the world. This great wanderlust was a characteristic of my grandmother (his sister) but she led a traditional life, constrained by health problems. The few times she traveled she loved it but had to be taken care of by my grandfather. My grandmother and her sister worked in a factory to put their brothers through school. Gret Uncle Harry and his brother Great Uncle Joe were the first members of their families to go to college.

- His life was probably deeply influenced by his mother, my great grandmother. She was the kind of lady who had an extra seat at her dinner table to feed the hungry neighbors. She had a very generous nature. She lost a son in 1918, and he was beloved by his siblings. I don’t know what influence that may have had to spur on the other sons to live life to the fullest. Harry’s other brother became a lawyer, and the girls (my Grandmother and Great Aunt) got married and lived traditional lives.

- Over the decades Uncle Harry wrote to his sister and family from whereever he was in the world, but not frequently. I still have postcards with Great Uncle Harry’s distinctive signature - He was restless at home and his wife, my Great Aunt Sandra Carlyle Forman understood this. I traveled to New York to meet with Sandra in the 1980’s. We had an instant bond, and she considered me her spiritual daughter. Sandra “never wanted to be beholden” to him, and supported him in his work.

- I remember Great Uncle Harry as having a big presence and a big aura. He filled the room with his presence. He always carried his cameras on his shoulder.

From what I understand He loved the people and country of China, the culture, the languages. He would have been opposed to anything that hurt the people of China. I would assume this was very much the case during WWII,

- I don’t really understand how he met the world leaders, but my take is he was probably a man that other greater men would see as trustworthy, and possibly as a friend.

- He used his cameral with eyes wide open, and would have wanted to relieve suffering if he saw it, and documented it. He would have also wanted to record beauty if he saw it, the beauty of a people, a land, or their culture.

- He felt as much at home in a hut as in a palace. He embraced the mysteries of life.

When he was near death, he came “home” to die in New York. Gret Aunt Sandra made it her final mission to place his photographs. I don’t think Great Uncle Harry could have been the person that he was without Great Aunt Sandra “in his court” helping him run the business, helping edit and being a gust of wind beneath his wings.

Brenda Lu Forman, my Mom's 1st cousin, Harry and Sandra's daughter collaborated on some books with her father. It was difficult having a father who was constantly traveling, but she was very brilliant, and went on to do important work in her own right. In the early 1980's I visited with Brenda Lu in Burbank, and her friend John Green gave a psychic reading

It was between the Smithsonian and U. of Wisconsin, and they landed in Wisconsin, where he grew up.I remember Great Uncle Harry as having a big presence and a big aura. He filled the room with his presence.

"Photojournalist Harrison Forman. Forman’s photographs and notes have been preserved and digitized by the UWM Libraries Digital Collections and the American Geographical Society Library, making these unique and important documents of a terrible and forgotten tragedy available to the world to discover, learn from, and re-use.

"Milwaukee Youth Penetrates Tibet September 3, 1933 Milwaukee, Wis. (Aug. 29) Off for new adventures in forbidden Tibet and other remote parts of the Orient, Harrison Forman, 29-year-old explorer, has just left Milwaukee after a month’s visit with his parents here, Mr. and Mrs. Morris Forman. A lone-wolf traveller, Forman roved throughout China, lived for a long time in Shanghai, passed through settlements of Chinese Jews in the Kaifan area, and spent a year in mountainous Tibet, usually prohibited to white men. Fight illustrated articles on his exotic Tibetan experiences appeared recently in successive issues of the Hearst Sunday newspapers. Others were published in the London Graphic and in several Chinese as well as European publications. Narrowly escaping death at the hands of bandits in fastnesses of central China, after several companions were killed, Forman succeeded in penetrating lofty Tibet, and with the aid of an interpreter became friendly with powerful native chiefs. Having previously spent three years in China, chiefly in Shanghai, where he directed an agency for an airplane firm, Forman knew the northern Chinese tongue with comparative fluency, and had also picked up some Tibetan. He lieved in Lassa and Labrang, the scene of a vast monastery, housing 5,000 monks. Pressing his way to authorities with occidental gifts, such as watches, flashlights and jewels, Forman became acquainted with the so-called “Living Buddhas”, religious rulers dominating sections of Tibet and believed by the mass of people to have divine powers. Though he stayed in Tibet for a year, Forman declared, he found no signs of any Jewish settlements in Tibetan cities or the hinterland. He is said to have made scientific discoveries as to the shape and direction of Tibetan mountains, and as to practices of the Tibetan Lamaistic religion. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Forman wandered away soon after graduation to Mexico, and from there on a ship direct to China. An experienced flier, he has also written a popular text book on aviation, published in English in Shanghai. Before proceeding anew to the Orient, he is to spend some time in New York and vicinity to make arrangements for putting his explorations and part of his collection of 2,000 Asiatic photographs into book form."

another recap: Harrison Forman Obit - WJC Harrison Forman Obit - WJC Saturday, January 28, 2017 3:53 AM Forman Family Page 1