Pioneer Information
Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, Harrison graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in landscape design in 1916. After graduating she moved to Cleveland, Ohio and established a landscape architecture practice specializing in residential gardens. Harrison designed and maintained the gardens at Valleevue Farm, an estate adjacent to Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) belonging to the Squire family, for nearly thirty years, until the family bequeathed 277 acres to the university as an educational resource in 1937 (part of University Farm today).
In the late 1920s and early 1930s Harrison created a master plan for Pebble Hill plantation in Thomasville, Georgia (listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990). In 1931 she was elected chapter secretary for the Ohio Michigan American Society of Landscape Architecture (ASLA) chapter, becoming one of the first women members to hold a leadership position. In the mid-1930s, Harrison left landscape architecture to focus her attention on dog breeding and showing until her death at age 90.
