TOM HARPER
March 24, 1915 - January 20, 2006
Thomas Sinclair Harper, M.D., our oldest VFP Chapter 56 member, died at home on Friday morning, January 20, 2006, two months shy of his 91st birthday. Tom was born in Grand Junction Colorado on March 24, 1915 to parents Sinclair and Mabel Harper. He had two brothers, Robert and John.
A fact about Tom little known to VFP friends is that he spent his youth playing tennis. He distinguished himself in the sport, earning trophies in Colorado singles tournaments and playing doubles with his father. He even played a match with tennis great Bill Tilden (which he lost).
Tom first graduated from Cal Tech in Pasadena, then received a medical degree from the University of Colorado in Denver in 1942. Immediately after graduation, he joined the Navy, where he served for the remainder of World War II, stationed in Hawaii and the South Pacific. Not yet having completed his medical residency, Tom was thrust into being a surgeon on board a storm-rocked naval ship, where he performed an appendectomy by reading from a manual and getting advice on a phone. The patient survived. After the war, Tom decided to switch his medical specialty to psychiatry. He studied at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, before moving east to Westchester County, New York.
Tom was a strong believer in non-violence and a peace activist for most of his life. In the 1960s, he attended many anti-Vietnam war protests, including the 1968 protest at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, as well as large protests in New York City and Washington D.C.
In 1974, at age 59, Tom packed all he owned into a VW van and moved to Mendocino, California. Tom liked his Volkswagen, but after five engine replacements he finally switched to a Honda Civic, a model to which he was loyal 'til death. In 1990 Tom moved north and opened his psychiatry practice in Eureka. His long medical career spanned more than 60 years.
Big changes came in 2003 when, at age 88, Tom fell and fractured his hip. Veterans For Peace friends rallied around him, taking one of their Friday evening peace vigils to a grassy spot in front of his hospital window. Nurses helped Tom move near the window so he could participate in the vigil from his room. He sat waving his arms practically the entire hour, in solidarity with his friends. He mended well from that fall and was soon able to rejoin the vigil on the Arcata Plaza. He was one of the most stalwart participants in that ongoing action.
In recent years, Tom was incredibly active and expressed interest in everything that was happening in his local peace community. When he turned 90, VFP-56 threw a birthday party to raise money for the G.I. Rights Hotline, and members presented Tom with a beautiful glass plaque for his life-long dedication to peace and justice. He was the life of the party, telling jokes about George W. and eating more than his share of birthday cake.
Tom also was an active participant in the Marsh Commons co-housing association where he lived. Marsh Commons residents John Schaeffer and Kit Crosby-Williams, familiar faces at the Friday vigil, were especially fond of him. He was affectionately known as Tomas to his second family from Mendocino, Marlene, Shean, Terry, Marla, Heather, James, and Laura Greenway, to whom he was a friend, father, intellectual companion and confidant.
Tom's brothers and his ex-wife Maureen preceded him in death. He is survived by his sons Richard and Paul of Arizona, his daughter Joan and son-in-law Don Morgan of North Salem, New York; and granddaughters Elizabeth Morgan and Katherine Morgan.