second try: My dear dialist friends,
I beg your indulgence for this long post but I believe that it regards a matter of some importance to all of us. Many of you are familiar with the Sunquest sundial which is shown in Waugh's book. This beautiful dial was once available in kit form, as a set of cast aluminum parts, directly from it's creator, Richard L. Schmoyer. After Mr. Schmoyer passed away in May of 1997, his daughter, Laurel Browning, undertook to make the sundial available again as a tribute to her father. Laurel wanted to find someone who could produce her father's dial for sale in a finished form. Toward this goal, she made contact with Harris Morrison of Morrison Associates in Montreal, Canada. Morrison Associates manufactures a familiar line of small, "wearable" sundials. In December of 1997, Laurel entered into an agreement with Morrison providing him use of the complete pattern set for the Sunquest dial for as long as six months in which time he would undertake trial production of the sundial. In June of 1998, Laurel asked for the return of the pattern set. The pattern set was returned to her without the patterns for the base cores and for the gnomon. When she asked Morrison about the missing patterns, she was told that they had been misplaced. Laurel went to the pattern makers who had made the original patterns for her father to find out how much it would cost to make a replacement for the gnomon pattern. In November of 1998, she sent Morrison a bill for the cost of making new patterns, in accordance with the terms of her agreement with him. To date, he has not honored this reasonable request to fund the replacement of lost patterns. For the sake of brevity, I have left out many details including my own involvement in this story. I have related events as accurately as I can without any prejudice toward Harris Morrison. Since making contact with Laurel late in 1997, my role has been to wait in the wings and provide any assistance I could to help her see this project through to its fruition. Because Laurel is a very busy person, running a farm with her husband Gary and operating her own tax preparation business, I took an active role in trying to help her recover the missing patterns beginning in January of this year. Although I have never spoken with him, I have written to Morrison personally and have used the services of an attorney to try to urge him to honor his liability to Laurel Browning for the return or replacement of the missing patterns. He initially responded by finding and returning the patterns for the cores of the sundial's base but the crucial and complicated gnomon pattern is still missing from the pattern set. At this point in time, Morrison is totally unresponsive. He does not reply to correspondence and does not return telephone calls which Laurel has made to him. I am aware that he suffers from a disabling illness but I cannot guess at his intentions. Laurel is exasperated and I am not able to do much more to help. Living in Oregon, I am a long distance from Laurel's home state of Maryland and do not have the time or the resources to fly to Canada to try to meet with Morrison or search for the missing pattern myself. It is my hope that one of you on this mailing list is familiar with Mr. Morrison or might live in or near Montreal and could help with the recovery of the gnomon pattern. If any members of this estimable group can offer assistance or advice, please reply to me in open forum or privately. Sincerely, David R. Gagnon
