Marjorie Harper, left, 71, a U.S. Army veteran, stands outside her home in Tuscola County’s Vassar Township. Township Supervisor Bob Forbes, right, is helping coordinate efforts to build a new home for Harper, whose house (in background) was condemned by building officials.
By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
VASSAR TWP. — Vietnam-era veteran Marjorie Harper came to the Vassar Township hall in March seeking a decrease in taxes, but her fellow township residents gave her more than that.
They’re trying to build her a new home.
“It’s very humbling to me to receive the help, because I’ve prayed about it for a long time and I believe that God has answered my prayers, and (Vassar Township Supervisor) Bob Forbes is a part of that answer.”
Members of the township Board of Review chose to make Harper’s 10-acre property exempt from taxation, and inspectors have condemned her home, which has several holes in the roof and lacks running water.
Forbes, meanwhile, has recruited donations of labor, materials and money to assist Harper, 71, a U.S. Army veteran.
Donations began to pour in, Forbes said, after articles about Harper’s plight appeared in the Tuscola County Advertiser and the Vassar Pioneer Times, and after WNEM-TV aired a segment on Harper.
“As soon as that came out on TV-5 and in your papers, the phone started ringing off the hook from people asking ‘How can we help?’” Forbes said.
Businesses have pledged to donate materials and contractors have vowed to give their labor and use their machinery as a campaign has taken shape to demolish Harper’s existing home and build her a new one along Maple Road.
Monetary donations amount to $3,000 so far and the amount continues to grow, according to Forbes.
A Vassar-area church is paying to rent Harper an apartment, while another donor has loaned use of a trailer now parked next to the Harper home. Harper’s daughter, Brenda Harper, lives in the trailer.
Another donor vows to install a water well, while Tuscola Technology Center officials have volunteered students to help with home construction.
“I was amazed,” Forbes said. “This changed my view of the people here.”
Volunteers are working to set up an account where donors can send checks. Until then, Forbes is collecting checks to forward to those who will oversee the monetary donationks.
Donors may make a check payable to “Marjorie Harper” and mail to: Bob Forbes, 6939 Twin Creek Drive, Millington, MI 48746.
A donor from California learned of Harper’s situation and sent a check for $1,000, Forbes said. Other volunteers picked up the cause and helped Harper receive what Forbes calls a “small military pension” each month.
Harper had been surviving on monthly Social Security checks prior to that. One of five children, she was stationed at Fort Meade, Md. while in the Army, and received basic training at Fort McClellan in Alabama.
“I think a lot of people are helping me out because I’m a veteran, but I know a lot of veterans need help more than I do,” Harper said. “I’m not anything special and I don’t want to be played up that way. I lost a lot of friends in Vietnam. People that I knew that went to Vietnam and never came back.”
Harper said her house was “in bad shape” when she inherited it from her late mother in 2000.
“She never really had the ability to have it fixed, and my brothers were all off with their own families,” Harper said. “One brother fixed the roof a little bit … but I’ve basically inherited the house in the condition that it’s in and it’s just deteriorated since then because I haven’t been able to keep up with it.”