Eulogy for Harry Jump

Harry Demain Jump - Eulogy

August 23rd, 1930 - April 4th, 2004
Good afternoon.
I'm Shannon Nelson, and I was priviledged enough to be Harry's son-in-law. On behalf of the family, I want to thank you all for coming here today to help us remember Harry. The love and support that has been shared with us in his honor has been wonderful.
His obituary appeared this week, and as they go, it was short. How can you sum up a whole life in 4 or 5 column inches? He wrote many letters to his family, and this week I've had a chance to read a few of his letters to his mom and pick up more of his history. I thought today I'd try to fill in some of the missing pieces from the obituary.
It starts out:
    Harry Demain Jump
    August 23rd, 1930 - April 4th, 2004

    A funeral will begin at 12:30 p.m. Friday at Memorial Gardens Funeral
    Chapel for Harry D. Jump, who died Sunday, April 4, 2004, in his home
    in Vancouver.  He was 73.
The obituary doesn't say that it had been his desire to stay at home, though he had been ill with diabetes and heart disease for many years, and was finding it harder and harder to get around. His wife, Nadine, took wonderful care of him until she got sick this winter.
He wouldn't have gotten along very well at a nursing home, because he would have had to do things their way. Luckily, we were able to get daily in-home care that could put together what he wanted to eat, and let him stay where he wanted to be.
The obituary says that
    Harry was born Aug. 23, 1930, in Spokane, grew up in Ellensburg, WA,
    and lived in the Portland and Vancouver area for over 50 years.
Yes, he was born in Spokane, but the family lived on a farm in Peach, a small town on the Columbia River. You won't find that town now, unless you go swimming in the lake behind Grand Coulee Dam. Before the floodwaters came, the family moved to Ellensburg, WA, where his father built up the Big Bend Trucking company.
Harry went to the Catholic school up into the 8th grade. He was an average student - his last report card had B's and C's on it. The Catholic school got to be rather strict for someone who wanted to do things his own way. In January of 1945, he was asked to leave the school after he put his brother Dalen in a garbage can and fought off Dalen's would-be rescuer, and was later caught showing off a rubber doll during recess.
So, at 14 years old, instead of moping around the house out of school, he decided to go traveling. First he hitched a ride to Seattle with some guys from Cle Elum that had siphoned their gas from a car parked in the middle of town. Later, in March, his mom received a telegram from San Fransisco asking for permission to join the Merchant Marine. She evidently said no, because a couple of weeks later he wrote from the South Chicago YMCA, saying he was working, but asking for money.
Late in November of that year, after he turned 15, he joined the Navy with a doctored birth certificate. He started off on the USS Wilson, which became a part of the bomb test at Bikini in the summer of 1946. After that he was assigned to the USS Higbee, where he spent the rest of his tour as a signalman. In one letter, while in China, he talks about designing his own signal flags from Chinese silk. He wasn't satisfied with the standard issue flags, and he was proud of how his would look so much better.
The obituary continues with:
    He is survived by Nadine, his wife of 52 years; daughter Vanessa
    Nelson of Portland and her husband Shannon; brother Eugene B. Jump
    of Ellensburg, WA; sisters Janeice Diefenbach and Colleen Kelleher,
    both of Ellensburg; and two grand-children, Brandon C. Nelson and
    B. Tyler Nelson.
Harry was in the middle of 6 brothers and sisters - Dalen, Jack, Colleen, Janeice, Larry, and Gene. In his letters to his mother, he often mentioned them, and talked about the gifts he was sending. He regreted not being able to go to Colleen or Janeice's graduations while he was at sea, and he was concerned about Gene's welfare in school.
After the Navy, he spent some time back in Ellensburg. The only record I've seen of this time so far is the newpaper article about his careless driving in 1947. This is also when he first learned to fly.
Sometime after that he was driving a truck delivering bags of concrete in the Bay area. About the time that company folded, he was given the name of a girl to meet in Portland from a friend, who had gotten her name from her brother. He called her up and pretended to be the brother's friend and got a date. In February of 1952 he moved to Portland and married Nadine Pflugrad. In between water skiing, bowling, golfing, movies, and milkshakes, he got more jobs driving trucks. Vanessa was born 7 years later.
He worked hard and played hard, and growing up as his daughter wasn't always easy. He had his way of doing things. He didn't understand why a child would do something different, and she didn't always know why he had to have some things just so. Yet he instilled in her a great love of music and the strong values that he learned early in school.
The obituary continues:
    Harry was a retired concrete truck driver, and had been a shop steward
    for Teamsters Union, Local 162, in Portland.  Prior to that, he was
    a signalman in the Navy at the end of World War II. He was a charter
    member of the Milwaukie Elks Lodge No. 2032, and a member of American
    Legion Smith-Reynolds Post No. 14.
Harry liked his job driving a concrete mixer, and did a lot with concrete. I think he liked how he could shape it however he wanted it. When their little house needed a proper foundation, he poured it himself. While he was at, he installed a bomb shelter. He always wanted a place with a drive around driveway, so he replaced the lawn and poured a large driveway and porch. He replaced an old window sill in the bathroom with a concrete sill that would never rot out again.
When out and about, he'd point out various bridges and buildings to Vanessa and tell how he helped pour the concrete. He had a specific truck that he drove, and wouldn't trade up to a larger truck when the company wanted him to. With the smaller truck, he could get into smaller, more interesting places. That's what he wanted.
He was also proud to be part of the Teamsters. He loved working with the people, and had a knack for helping different groups run their strikes. He was able to help coordinate where people would go to make the strike more effective. He enjoyed being able to run the strike his way.
In his off hours and during the rainy seasons, he ran his airplane business "Big Bend Aviation", named after his father's trucking business. Along with buying and selling used airplane parts, he ferried other people's planes, hired out to the sheriff's office for ariel surveilence, and other jobs that he could pick and choose from as he pleased. He mostly flew just for fun - out to a friend's ranch in Maupin; to the beach for fresh oysters for an evening picnic; to the Deschutes for fresh springwater for his home-made beer; for just the thrill of being in the air, able to go whereever he wanted.
He could be a bit of a hot-dog when flying, but he wasn't above laughing at himself when it backfired. There's a whole string of pictures that he took of his plane, nose down in the sand, when he landed where it was a little too soft.
He helped build the hanger he rented at Evergreen Field in Vancouver, as part of a line of T-shaped hangers. He made sure that he got the end of the line, so that he could have the extra bit of space tacked on to his T. He made sure the floor was poured just right, and he put in his own beams for a loft. Just the way he wanted it.
In 1978 he bought his house in Vancouver, a part of a neighborhood of flyers near Evergreen Field. This included rights to use the private runway, and to eventually build his own hanger there.
When he wasn't working or flying, there were many other interests to keep him busy - he was ecclectic, and collected many different things. When listening to music, he'd think nothing of stacking up his collection of Beethoven, Mario Lanza, and the Tijauna Brass records. He owned a player-piano, and he and Vanessa would spend time singing along with the scores of rolls he collected.
He had a soft heart for tools and old gas stations. He loved ordering from the Sears Craftsman catalog, sitting with the phone and flipping through the pages. One time he ordered an even dozen wheel barrows - they get used, you know. There are still a few around. He also helped clean out - rescue? - parts from old gas stations: oil drums and pumps, special shelving, ceiling lighting, air hoses - you name it, he saved it.
When I first met Harry, I was warned that he could be hard to get along with; that he could be intimidating, and had scared off other potential suitors. That was true, but with a purpose: if someone couldn't meet his expectations, he didn't want to deal with them. He knew how to be intimidating, but he was impressed when you could stand up to him and call his bluff. Once he went with Vanessa to help her get her final paycheck from a reluctant store manager - he simply carried a drill with his largest drill bit into the store. The manager in question hid in his office and slid the check under the door.
Now, I haven't even touched on his love of iris', animals, and root beer candies. His gun collection, his VW's, and his grapes. Going to Elks lodge picnics and meetings, and pushing for the speedbumps on his street. His drawers and drawers and boxes full of slides and home movies. His bee hives. His meticulus business records, his stacks of bound newspaper reprints, and that huge bottle of tequila he bought in Mexico.
I last saw Harry when we took him out to find his agates and a few other treasures from the hanger. It was a beautiful day. He kept commenting on how warm it was. As we left, he was sitting in his chair just outside the garage, enjoying the sunshine. He was smiling.
The obituary concludes:
    Throughout his life, Harry enjoyed flying airplanes, buying and selling
    airplane parts, collecting memorabilia, playing snooker, bowling,
    listening to music, driving Volkswagens, and doing things his way.
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