Newell Albert Harmon Jr.

Newell Albert Harmon, Jr. of Littleton, CO
August 14, 1929-September 16, 2018

 

Life and Times of Newell A. Harmon, Jr.

 

""There is no easy way to do this. So do it right: weep, laugh, pray, love, live, give thanks and praise; comfort, mend, honor, and remember."" - Thomas Lynch, Author and Poet

 

The poet, Robert Frost said ""In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."" Robert Frost is right, of course, but it's the people in life that make life more than a boring trip. My father was one of those people that added depth and color to my life. I'd like to tell you a little bit about this man - the greatest man I have ever known.

My father was not one for idle chitchat himself but through his example, I learned so much about life. For example, I learned courage the day he chopped through his boot and toe with an axe. He was so calm when he came in from outside that I thought he was joking. I was horrified to learn he wasn't. When he told me about his friend, Faith and her cancer, I learned what compassion looked like. I also learned it was ok to be humble and ask for forgiveness when my father apologized for not always being there when I might have needed him and asked me for forgiveness. I learned confidence when my father repeatedly told me I could be anything I wanted. The most enduring truth I learned from my father was a belief in God and His love for me. That belief has gotten me through the most difficult days of my life.

There are many things that that make my father special. He was a train enthusiast and from that hobby came some of my favorite childhood memories. At Christmas he would set up a Lionel train track around the Christmas tree. There would be much debate about what the layout would look like - should it be an oval, a figure eight or something more exotic? Once the layout was completed, we would hold our breath to see if the engine would make it all around the first time. After that I loved to see the train go by with the dining car lit up and the tiny outlines of people. I would imagine where they were going and what they were saying to each other.

My father was also a troop leader for our church's version of the boy and girl scouts. Using his Marine training, he would put us through marching drills. He was quite intimidating as he made us march in formation. I wondered what my friends thought and I didn't understand at the time why he made us practice so much. It wasn't until later in life I saw he was showing us the benefits of practice and concentration

My father also had a creative side. He dabbled in water color painting, played the guitar and spent hours in his home darkroom developing pictures he had shot. I like to think that if I have any artistic talent, it came from him.

For all my father has taught me, my wish is that this summary of his life will do him justice. Regrettably I am not a Robert Frost, however, so all I can offer is a brief glimpse into the character and life of this great man.

My father started life at one of the most difficult times in history for most American families. He was born to Evelyn Lucile and Newell Albert Harmon, Sr. on August 14, 1929 as the oldest of four children. 1929 is generally seen as the start of the Great Depression although there were other indicators that America was headed for a financial crisis prior to 1929. The housing market had been declining since it's height in 1925. Two months after his birth, the stock market crashed. Many economists now believe that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress's attempts to rectify the problems through the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act may have made matters worse as unemployment surged from single to double digits afterwards.

Newell, Sr. moved his growing family out to rural Rulison, Colorado and then spent quite a bit of time away from home working on a variety of jobs. This left Evelyn with the task of not only raising two boys and two girls alone but keeping up financially. The family didn't have much money and lived off the land for what they could. Evelyn did her best to keep her young family going by raising chickens and goats for food as well as to trade eggs and goat milk for items the family didn't have. The postman acted as courier, picking up eggs or whatever Evelyn had made and dropping off groceries or items from one of the neighbors. My father said that keeping the goats for food didn't work out as Evelyn had planned. When it came time to kill the goats, none of them would do it as the goats had become pets. The kids walked a few miles in the snow to the neighbors to try and catch a ride to school. After evening chores were done, Dad would do his homework by the light of a gas lamp.

When Dad was 18 years old, he joined the Marines. He said that joining the Marines was the best decision he made as he needed the structure and the Marines made sure he got it! After completing training at Camp Pendleton in Orange County, California, Dad was sent to Korea. Korea was very difficult for my father as it was for many young soldiers caught in a war that couldn't be classified. Unlike World War II, the Korean War didn't have popular support at home.

In July 1952, Dad was Honorably Discharged After his tour of duty was over, he went to work for the State Department of Transportation building the highway that ran past Rifle and Silt, Colorado.

In Rifle, he met Autumn, the youngest daughter of Walter and Mattie Lee Weaver. He asked her to marry him but she said no. He decided that since he wasn't getting married he would move to Denver to find work. While he was getting his car ready to go, Autumn's mother, Mattie Lee showed up and told him to stay outside while she talked to his mother. Dad doesn't know what was said but when Mattie Lee and Evelyn came out it was decided that Newell was marrying Autumn. Apparently, Mattie Lee felt Newell was going to be the grounding that Autumn needed so she convinced Evelyn the marriage would be good for both of them. My mother was stubborn but apparently Mattie Lee was more stubborn because Autumn agreed to marry my Dad. Because Mattie Lee had converted to the Seventh Day Adventist faith she asked Newell to become an Adventist and he did. In September 1953, they were married in Rifle, Colorado. Shortly thereafter Dad went to work for Recordak, the microfilming subsiduary of Kodak.

In 1956, they had their first child – me, and then due to a transfer by Kodak, they moved to Salt Lake City, Utah where Emmy was born in 1957. They stayed in Utah for seven years and in 1962, Craig was born. I have very few memories of Salt Lake City. There is one that has stayed with me though. It was Halloween and my sister was in the hospital. I think she had drank a bottle of cough syrup. (She was always the adventurous one!) Anyway, it was freezing cold and snowing but after spending the day at the hospital I think my Dad felt sorry for me as he said he would take me out trick or treating. I thought it would be great fun, just Dad and I, but it was miserable. I missed my sister so after a couple of blocks we went home.

Kodak transferred Dad's job again and the Harmon's moved to Mountain View, California. In California, Dad would take the train into San Francisco every day to work. Sometimes we would get to go to see my father's work. Once my Dad's secretary, Marie, lent us her cabin in Yosemite. It was a magical place with smell of pine trees everywhere and grape vines growing over the carport. We had a great time running around. One morning, I woke up in the bed I was sharing with my sister just as she knocked her pillow over the side of the bed. I found myself face to face with a scorpion and began screaming. My father came running and jerked us both out of bed before killing the scorpion. Never had my father been more of a hero in my eyes. Needless to say, I was ready to go home though.

With all the kids now in school my mother went to work part - time at J.C. Penney's. It was a typical middle class mid century lifestyle. However, by the 70's the marriage was showing signs of cracks. Dad and Mom decided to move back to Colorado to see if being close to family would help and in my freshman year of high school they moved back to Denver.

Married life did not improve after the move and so Newell and Autumn separated about 1975. Autumn and Craig moved to Idaho and Newell started life over in an Englewood Colorado apartment. Emmy stayed with Dad and I moved out on my own.

Life returned to a type of normalcy for my father. Emmy married and Craig moved in with my dad. After a couple of years Dad started dating again and met Patricia Ann Scroggins, mother of Randy, one of Craig's friends. Pat also had a daughter, Stacey. In 1977, my Dad and Pat were married and moved to their final home, 4665 S. Adobe in Littleton, Colorado, a split level with plenty of room for the merged family. Eventually, Craig, Randy and Stacy married and left to start their own lives.

Kodak started to having difficulties and offered early retirement packages to employees to cut costs. Pat, a school teacher and Dad talked it over and decided it would work out well if they both retired early and so they did. They never regretted the decision.

Pat and Newell lived quietly on Adobe enjoying the grandkids and sometimes traveling to Virginia to see his mother and sister, Jean. Sadly, in 2014 Pat began to have health problems and died in August 2016. Shortly after this, testing showed that Dad's prostate cancer had begun to attack his bones. He was forced to start getting shots and had a radiation session to slow the cancer.

Pat's passing was also extremely hard for Dad. He missed her greatly and would often go to her grave to talk to her. He told me more than once that he considered himself still married. All of us tried to fill the gap but I think the sadness, the cancer and the weariness of this world began to wear Dad down. He lost interest in food and lost a lot of weight. When he got a fever on September 14, 2019 his body couldn't handle one more thing and he passed away on September 16, 2019.

I hope you have enjoyed getting to know my father. He was a simple, modest, quiet man and he was my hero and spiritual inspiration. Toward the end of his life, all he wanted was to see Jesus. I take comfort in knowing he is finally with the Lord.

~ Cheryl Harmon Lawson September 2018

 

Funeral Service Thursday, September 27, 2018, 1:30 PM, Trulife Community SDA Church, 6054 S. Kipling Pkwy., Littleton, CO 80127. Graveside Service 3:00 PM, Fort Logan National Cemetery, area A.

Funeral Service: September 20, 2018 1:30 pm

Trulife Community SDA Church
6054 S. Kipling Pkwy.
Littleton, CO 80127
303-971-0582

Graveside Service: September 27, 2018 3:00 pm

Fort Logan National Cemetery
3698 South Sheridan Boulevard
Denver, CO 80236
(303) 761-0117
https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftlogan.asp