LADD, Harry McKinley, Jr., of Oklahoma City, passed away on January 8, 1999, after an extended illness. Known as Poppy to many, he was a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. A true gentleman, he will live on in the hearts of many people. He was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. A graduate of the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of the First Christian Church, Oklahoma City, since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly. Viewing is at Hahn-Cook Street Draper Funeral Home at 6006 NW Grand Blvd. Funeral services will be at 1:30 p.m. on January 12, 1999, in the chapel at First Christian Church, 36th and Walker, with burial at Rose-Hill Cemetery.
We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of our church, my dear father, Harry McKinley Ladd, Jr. A lot of people called him "Harry". Some of the children in his family and among his friends call him "Uncle Harry", but mostly everyone just called him "Poppy". And that name suited him just fine. Young people, old people, nurses in the hospital, members of his family, and I just called him Poppy.
Harry was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. He graduated from the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of this church since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly.
All of you have your special memories of Harry, but I would like to share a few. From his earliest days, Harry was sweet and caring, but also a bit mischievous and adventuresome which often got him into trouble. Even as a baby, he crawled out the front door and down the street to the corner where his mother got off the streetcar when she came home from work. Harry's grandmother had to chase him down and take him home. When Harry was about 10, his father smoked cigarettes that he had to roll from loose tobacco. Harry often talked his grandmother into rolling the cigarettes, so he could sneak a few and hide behind a big shrub at the back of the house to smoke them. One day his mother saw all the smoke, came out of the house, and caught him. She made him sit on the front steps of the house, for everybody to see, and to smoke until he got sick.
About that time, Harry's daddy worked for the Oklahoma City Police Force, and had put some moonshine in the refrigerator. One Saturday, Harry and four other kids were going to the movies, but the show didn't start for a couple of hours. Harry didn't know what to do in the meantime. His grandmother told him to lie down and take a nap. He tried but just couldn't sleep. He decided if he had a little taste of that moonshine that he could probably sleep. So, he drank some. It didn't help very much, so he drank a little more. After several trips to the refrigerator Harry got drunk and totally missed the show.
Once day Harry and his pals dug a cave in the vacant lot behind his house. They hauled the dirt out in buckets and scattered it so no one would know what they were doing. They dug a cave big enough for four or five kids to sit in and then stole some boards and laid them across the top of the cave along with dirt so nobody would know the cave was there. To get into the cave, they would remove the boards and lower themselves into the ground, where they built fires and baked potatoes, stealing potatoes one at a time from their houses. One day a contractor plowed the vacant lot using a horsedrawn plow. The horses fell through the boards into the cave, and Harry again was in a heap of trouble.
Harry liked to ride his bike over to his grandparent's house. He loved to eat, and his grandmother would cook what he wanted, which was meat, potatoes, biscuits, and chocolate pie. Plus, he knew his cousin, Jean, would be there and he enjoyed putting her on the handlebars of his bike and pedaling as fast as he could down steep grades to hear her scream. Harry worked as a soda jerk during Junior Highschool. His sister, Betty, often came to the drugstore, climbed on a stool, and asked Harry for ice cream and something to drink. Harry always fixed something for them both. Each week when payday rolled around, Harry was in debt to the drugstore.
After Harry got his drivers license, he would beg his parents to let him use the car. They often agreed to let him use it, as long as he took his sister, Betty, with him. He would stuff her in the car, drop her off at the local roller rink, and then go on about his business. This happened so often that Betty almost became queen of the roller derby.
Harry's parents sent him to Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. Every weekend he got lonesome and made up any excuse he could think of to come home. He had just about run out of excuses, when he decided to call his parents and tell them he had a toothache. They decided to cure him of his tall tales. They went and got him, brought him to Oklahoma City, and asked him which tooth it was. He randomly pointed at one, and the dentist yanked it out. At the Academy, all cadets were assigned horses. Harry was the shortest cadet on campus and they gave him the biggest horse. He said the only way he could get on that horse was to take a flying leap and be ready to gallop.
After military school, Harry served in the Army during World War II. When his tour was over, he returned to Oklahoma City. And one day in 1947, Harry was on his way to Tulsa, where his sister lived. On the way, he stopped in a restaurant to get a cup of coffee. Gerri and her younger sister, Lena, were just teenagers and were working there as waitresses. Harry stopped in every day to see Gerri, and one day took his sister in with him and told Gerri that Betty was his girlfriend. Gerri got mad and poured coffee all over him.
Harry started working in his father's stove repair business after getting out of the Army. One day he and his dad were working on a stove in a very nice residence. Harry's dad disconnected the stove, stuck a rag in the gas pipe, but failed to shut off the gas. They were working in a dark area and when they lit a match to check the stove connections, everything exploded. Harry saved his dad's life. He somehow dragged him into the truck and drove to the hospital emergency entrance, where he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he and his dad were bandaged from head to foot and were sharing a hospital room. Both of them had second and third degree burns.
After a whirlwind courtship, Harry and Gerri were married 51 years ago in this church at its downtown location with Reverend Bill Alexander as the officiating minister. One day soon after they were married, Harry wanted to impress Gerri, and so he made up a wild story about how he had once been a cook at a restaurant. Gerri surprised him by getting both of them part-time jobs at a local restaurant, with Harry having to cook. Harry learned to cook real fast.
Harry loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, he and Gerri traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Gerri remembers the time they were having breakfast in Las Vegas, just before continuing on their trip to California. Not expecting to be in the restaurant very long, they parked at a street meter and went into the Golden Nugget for breakfast. Harry left to put more money in the parking meter while Gerri waited. After about 30 minutes, breakfast had arrived but Harry had not returned. After another hour or so, Gerri went looking for him and found him in the casino playing the one-arm bandits "just a little more". On a trip to Virginia to see Nancy, Harry decided to chop wood to burn in the fireplace. He got carried away with how good he was at chopping wood and chopped so much that he ended up with a hernia. He vowed to never do that again. On another trip, he and Gerri got stranded in a icestorm in Arkansas. They ended up sleeping in cots in the community center. Harry thought it was great adventure.
Harry might have been a bit mischievous, but he was also a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. When his sister-in-law, Jean, was in the hospital for 11 months, he tried to go to the hospital every day to see her. He made a special point to take his niece, Wilma, home from the hospital, after the birth of her daughter, Ashley, and then after the birth of her daughter, Casey. Harry was a surrogate father to Wilma when her father was out of the country, and was delighted to be the one to give her away at her wedding. Harry was also a surrogate grandfather for Ashley and Casey and used to always make sure they got to see Santa Claus. Years before, the entire family was delighted when Harry dressed up as Santa Claus for his nieces, Nancy and Karen, and came down the driveway going "ho-ho-ho".
Harry has suffered from severe medical problems since 1973. First, he developed arterioschlerosis, and then phlebetis. The problems kept getting worse, and he had to medically retire from Tinker in 1976. He developed a slipped disc, then had a heart attack. Then in 1987 he had a second massive heart attack, accompanied by grand mal seizures. The doctors said he could not live, that he had been without oxygen too long and was braindead. But he woke up 3 days later. A few months later, he had emergency surgery because he had contracted a severe infection in the area where his sternum and rib cage had been destroyed during resusitation. The doctors had to remove all the bones in his chest as well as an inordinate amount of tissue and muscle. They grafted and replaced as best they could, rerouted major muscles to fill in the space, sewed him up, and waited. The doctors hailed him as their miracle baby. Then he was found to have a large cancer on his left kidney, which had to be removed. Then his right kidney failed and he had to go on dialysis. For years, Harry had one medical problem after another. By 1998, he had lung disease, coronary vascular disease, high blood pressure, he was legally blind, had lost all of his hearing in his right ear and 50 percent in his left, had total kidney failure, had congestive heart failure with only 25% capacity left in his heart function, and had contracted a deadly infection for which there is no known cure.
He was a fighter. Time and time again, he survived major illnesses that would have killed the average person. We called him the energizer bunny, because he just kept going and going. Throughout all of his pain and suffering, his family kept searching for the reasons for all these illnesses and why one man should have to endure so much. We are reminded of the disciples who brought the blind man to Jesus and asked, "Why is this man afflicted? Was it his parents' or his own sin?" "Neither," the Lord replied before healing him, "It is that my glory may be shown."
We each have our memories of Harry and we will be comforted by those wonderful memories. We will remember his caring, compassionate personality. We'll remember how he use to polish his car so much that we thought he would rub off the paint. We'll remember how he cherished his last trip to Florida and walking on the beach picking up shells. We'll remember that sometimes he didn't talk a lot, but that he was always there when someone needed him. We will remember how he liked to go to the grocery store and buy paper towels and aluminum foil, and that Gerri has more than she can possibly ever use. We will remember how he loved cowboy movies and football. We will remember how he treated every woman with the most gracious respect, and how the ladies loved him for it. We will remember that he suffered through so many illnesses and never complained but was ever hopeful that once again he could beat the odds. We will remember that if ever a man deserved a gold star in heaven, it is Harry Ladd. He was a dear, sweet man, who always managed to smile throughout it all. When Harry died, his doctor said that "Harry Ladd was a true gentleman who will live on in the hearts of so many people. He touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew him, you loved him". I know all of you agree with this statement. He died as he lived, with dignity and grace. And I think it is appropriate to mention that he died on the same date, January 8, on which his father died in 1971. I loved my dear Poppy more than I can ever say.
Copyright©2010Nancy Ladd. All Rights Reserved.
We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of our church, my dear father, Harry McKinley Ladd, Jr. A lot of people called him "Harry". Some of the children in his family and among his friends call him "Uncle Harry", but mostly everyone just called him "Poppy". And that name suited him just fine. Young people, old people, nurses in the hospital, members of his family, and I just called him Poppy.
Harry was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. He graduated from the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of this church since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly.
All of you have your special memories of Harry, but I would like to share a few. From his earliest days, Harry was sweet and caring, but also a bit mischievous and adventuresome which often got him into trouble. Even as a baby, he crawled out the front door and down the street to the corner where his mother got off the streetcar when she came home from work. Harry's grandmother had to chase him down and take him home. When Harry was about 10, his father smoked cigarettes that he had to roll from loose tobacco. Harry often talked his grandmother into rolling the cigarettes, so he could sneak a few and hide behind a big shrub at the back of the house to smoke them. One day his mother saw all the smoke, came out of the house, and caught him. She made him sit on the front steps of the house, for everybody to see, and to smoke until he got sick.
About that time, Harry's daddy worked for the Oklahoma City Police Force, and had put some moonshine in the refrigerator. One Saturday, Harry and four other kids were going to the movies, but the show didn't start for a couple of hours. Harry didn't know what to do in the meantime. His grandmother told him to lie down and take a nap. He tried but just couldn't sleep. He decided if he had a little taste of that moonshine that he could probably sleep. So, he drank some. It didn't help very much, so he drank a little more. After several trips to the refrigerator Harry got drunk and totally missed the show.
Once day Harry and his pals dug a cave in the vacant lot behind his house. They hauled the dirt out in buckets and scattered it so no one would know what they were doing. They dug a cave big enough for four or five kids to sit in and then stole some boards and laid them across the top of the cave along with dirt so nobody would know the cave was there. To get into the cave, they would remove the boards and lower themselves into the ground, where they built fires and baked potatoes, stealing potatoes one at a time from their houses. One day a contractor plowed the vacant lot using a horsedrawn plow. The horses fell through the boards into the cave, and Harry again was in a heap of trouble.
Harry liked to ride his bike over to his grandparent's house. He loved to eat, and his grandmother would cook what he wanted, which was meat, potatoes, biscuits, and chocolate pie. Plus, he knew his cousin, Jean, would be there and he enjoyed putting her on the handlebars of his bike and pedaling as fast as he could down steep grades to hear her scream. Harry worked as a soda jerk during Junior Highschool. His sister, Betty, often came to the drugstore, climbed on a stool, and asked Harry for ice cream and something to drink. Harry always fixed something for them both. Each week when payday rolled around, Harry was in debt to the drugstore.
After Harry got his drivers license, he would beg his parents to let him use the car. They often agreed to let him use it, as long as he took his sister, Betty, with him. He would stuff her in the car, drop her off at the local roller rink, and then go on about his business. This happened so often that Betty almost became queen of the roller derby.
Harry's parents sent him to Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. Every weekend he got lonesome and made up any excuse he could think of to come home. He had just about run out of excuses, when he decided to call his parents and tell them he had a toothache. They decided to cure him of his tall tales. They went and got him, brought him to Oklahoma City, and asked him which tooth it was. He randomly pointed at one, and the dentist yanked it out. At the Academy, all cadets were assigned horses. Harry was the shortest cadet on campus and they gave him the biggest horse. He said the only way he could get on that horse was to take a flying leap and be ready to gallop.
After military school, Harry served in the Army during World War II. When his tour was over, he returned to Oklahoma City. And one day in 1947, Harry was on his way to Tulsa, where his sister lived. On the way, he stopped in a restaurant to get a cup of coffee. Gerri and her younger sister, Lena, were just teenagers and were working there as waitresses. Harry stopped in every day to see Gerri, and one day took his sister in with him and told Gerri that Betty was his girlfriend. Gerri got mad and poured coffee all over him.
Harry started working in his father's stove repair business after getting out of the Army. One day he and his dad were working on a stove in a very nice residence. Harry's dad disconnected the stove, stuck a rag in the gas pipe, but failed to shut off the gas. They were working in a dark area and when they lit a match to check the stove connections, everything exploded. Harry saved his dad's life. He somehow dragged him into the truck and drove to the hospital emergency entrance, where he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he and his dad were bandaged from head to foot and were sharing a hospital room. Both of them had second and third degree burns.
After a whirlwind courtship, Harry and Gerri were married 51 years ago in this church at its downtown location with Reverend Bill Alexander as the officiating minister. One day soon after they were married, Harry wanted to impress Gerri, and so he made up a wild story about how he had once been a cook at a restaurant. Gerri surprised him by getting both of them part-time jobs at a local restaurant, with Harry having to cook. Harry learned to cook real fast.
Harry loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, he and Gerri traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Gerri remembers the time they were having breakfast in Las Vegas, just before continuing on their trip to California. Not expecting to be in the restaurant very long, they parked at a street meter and went into the Golden Nugget for breakfast. Harry left to put more money in the parking meter while Gerri waited. After about 30 minutes, breakfast had arrived but Harry had not returned. After another hour or so, Gerri went looking for him and found him in the casino playing the one-arm bandits "just a little more". On a trip to Virginia to see Nancy, Harry decided to chop wood to burn in the fireplace. He got carried away with how good he was at chopping wood and chopped so much that he ended up with a hernia. He vowed to never do that again. On another trip, he and Gerri got stranded in a icestorm in Arkansas. They ended up sleeping in cots in the community center. Harry thought it was great adventure.
Harry might have been a bit mischievous, but he was also a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. When his sister-in-law, Jean, was in the hospital for 11 months, he tried to go to the hospital every day to see her. He made a special point to take his niece, Wilma, home from the hospital, after the birth of her daughter, Ashley, and then after the birth of her daughter, Casey. Harry was a surrogate father to Wilma when her father was out of the country, and was delighted to be the one to give her away at her wedding. Harry was also a surrogate grandfather for Ashley and Casey and used to always make sure they got to see Santa Claus. Years before, the entire family was delighted when Harry dressed up as Santa Claus for his nieces, Nancy and Karen, and came down the driveway going "ho-ho-ho".
Harry has suffered from severe medical problems since 1973. First, he developed arterioschlerosis, and then phlebetis. The problems kept getting worse, and he had to medically retire from Tinker in 1976. He developed a slipped disc, then had a heart attack. Then in 1987 he had a second massive heart attack, accompanied by grand mal seizures. The doctors said he could not live, that he had been without oxygen too long and was braindead. But he woke up 3 days later. A few months later, he had emergency surgery because he had contracted a severe infection in the area where his sternum and rib cage had been destroyed during resusitation. The doctors had to remove all the bones in his chest as well as an inordinate amount of tissue and muscle. They grafted and replaced as best they could, rerouted major muscles to fill in the space, sewed him up, and waited. The doctors hailed him as their miracle baby. Then he was found to have a large cancer on his left kidney, which had to be removed. Then his right kidney failed and he had to go on dialysis. For years, Harry had one medical problem after another. By 1998, he had lung disease, coronary vascular disease, high blood pressure, he was legally blind, had lost all of his hearing in his right ear and 50 percent in his left, had total kidney failure, had congestive heart failure with only 25% capacity left in his heart function, and had contracted a deadly infection for which there is no known cure.
He was a fighter. Time and time again, he survived major illnesses that would have killed the average person. We called him the energizer bunny, because he just kept going and going. Throughout all of his pain and suffering, his family kept searching for the reasons for all these illnesses and why one man should have to endure so much. We are reminded of the disciples who brought the blind man to Jesus and asked, "Why is this man afflicted? Was it his parents' or his own sin?" "Neither," the Lord replied before healing him, "It is that my glory may be shown."
We each have our memories of Harry and we will be comforted by those wonderful memories. We will remember his caring, compassionate personality. We'll remember how he use to polish his car so much that we thought he would rub off the paint. We'll remember how he cherished his last trip to Florida and walking on the beach picking up shells. We'll remember that sometimes he didn't talk a lot, but that he was always there when someone needed him. We will remember how he liked to go to the grocery store and buy paper towels and aluminum foil, and that Gerri has more than she can possibly ever use. We will remember how he loved cowboy movies and football. We will remember how he treated every woman with the most gracious respect, and how the ladies loved him for it. We will remember that he suffered through so many illnesses and never complained but was ever hopeful that once again he could beat the odds. We will remember that if ever a man deserved a gold star in heaven, it is Harry Ladd. He was a dear, sweet man, who always managed to smile throughout it all. When Harry died, his doctor said that "Harry Ladd was a true gentleman who will live on in the hearts of so many people. He touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew him, you loved him". I know all of you agree with this statement. He died as he lived, with dignity and grace. And I think it is appropriate to mention that he died on the same date, January 8, on which his father died in 1971. I loved my dear Poppy more than I can ever say.
Copyright©2010Nancy Ladd. All Rights Reserved.
LADD, Harry McKinley, Jr., of Oklahoma City, passed away on January 8, 1999, after an extended illness. Known as Poppy to many, he was a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. A true gentleman, he will live on in the hearts of many people. He was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. A graduate of the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of the First Christian Church, Oklahoma City, since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly. Viewing is at Hahn-Cook Street Draper Funeral Home at 6006 NW Grand Blvd. Funeral services will be at 1:30 p.m. on January 12, 1999, in the chapel at First Christian Church, 36th and Walker, with burial at Rose-Hill Cemetery.
We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of our church, my dear father, Harry McKinley Ladd, Jr. A lot of people called him "Harry". Some of the children in his family and among his friends call him "Uncle Harry", but mostly everyone just called him "Poppy". And that name suited him just fine. Young people, old people, nurses in the hospital, members of his family, and I just called him Poppy.
Harry was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. He graduated from the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of this church since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly.
All of you have your special memories of Harry, but I would like to share a few. From his earliest days, Harry was sweet and caring, but also a bit mischievous and adventuresome which often got him into trouble. Even as a baby, he crawled out the front door and down the street to the corner where his mother got off the streetcar when she came home from work. Harry's grandmother had to chase him down and take him home. When Harry was about 10, his father smoked cigarettes that he had to roll from loose tobacco. Harry often talked his grandmother into rolling the cigarettes, so he could sneak a few and hide behind a big shrub at the back of the house to smoke them. One day his mother saw all the smoke, came out of the house, and caught him. She made him sit on the front steps of the house, for everybody to see, and to smoke until he got sick.
About that time, Harry's daddy worked for the Oklahoma City Police Force, and had put some moonshine in the refrigerator. One Saturday, Harry and four other kids were going to the movies, but the show didn't start for a couple of hours. Harry didn't know what to do in the meantime. His grandmother told him to lie down and take a nap. He tried but just couldn't sleep. He decided if he had a little taste of that moonshine that he could probably sleep. So, he drank some. It didn't help very much, so he drank a little more. After several trips to the refrigerator Harry got drunk and totally missed the show.
Once day Harry and his pals dug a cave in the vacant lot behind his house. They hauled the dirt out in buckets and scattered it so no one would know what they were doing. They dug a cave big enough for four or five kids to sit in and then stole some boards and laid them across the top of the cave along with dirt so nobody would know the cave was there. To get into the cave, they would remove the boards and lower themselves into the ground, where they built fires and baked potatoes, stealing potatoes one at a time from their houses. One day a contractor plowed the vacant lot using a horsedrawn plow. The horses fell through the boards into the cave, and Harry again was in a heap of trouble.
Harry liked to ride his bike over to his grandparent's house. He loved to eat, and his grandmother would cook what he wanted, which was meat, potatoes, biscuits, and chocolate pie. Plus, he knew his cousin, Jean, would be there and he enjoyed putting her on the handlebars of his bike and pedaling as fast as he could down steep grades to hear her scream. Harry worked as a soda jerk during Junior Highschool. His sister, Betty, often came to the drugstore, climbed on a stool, and asked Harry for ice cream and something to drink. Harry always fixed something for them both. Each week when payday rolled around, Harry was in debt to the drugstore.
After Harry got his drivers license, he would beg his parents to let him use the car. They often agreed to let him use it, as long as he took his sister, Betty, with him. He would stuff her in the car, drop her off at the local roller rink, and then go on about his business. This happened so often that Betty almost became queen of the roller derby.
Harry's parents sent him to Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. Every weekend he got lonesome and made up any excuse he could think of to come home. He had just about run out of excuses, when he decided to call his parents and tell them he had a toothache. They decided to cure him of his tall tales. They went and got him, brought him to Oklahoma City, and asked him which tooth it was. He randomly pointed at one, and the dentist yanked it out. At the Academy, all cadets were assigned horses. Harry was the shortest cadet on campus and they gave him the biggest horse. He said the only way he could get on that horse was to take a flying leap and be ready to gallop.
After military school, Harry served in the Army during World War II. When his tour was over, he returned to Oklahoma City. And one day in 1947, Harry was on his way to Tulsa, where his sister lived. On the way, he stopped in a restaurant to get a cup of coffee. Gerri and her younger sister, Lena, were just teenagers and were working there as waitresses. Harry stopped in every day to see Gerri, and one day took his sister in with him and told Gerri that Betty was his girlfriend. Gerri got mad and poured coffee all over him.
Harry started working in his father's stove repair business after getting out of the Army. One day he and his dad were working on a stove in a very nice residence. Harry's dad disconnected the stove, stuck a rag in the gas pipe, but failed to shut off the gas. They were working in a dark area and when they lit a match to check the stove connections, everything exploded. Harry saved his dad's life. He somehow dragged him into the truck and drove to the hospital emergency entrance, where he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he and his dad were bandaged from head to foot and were sharing a hospital room. Both of them had second and third degree burns.
After a whirlwind courtship, Harry and Gerri were married 51 years ago in this church at its downtown location with Reverend Bill Alexander as the officiating minister. One day soon after they were married, Harry wanted to impress Gerri, and so he made up a wild story about how he had once been a cook at a restaurant. Gerri surprised him by getting both of them part-time jobs at a local restaurant, with Harry having to cook. Harry learned to cook real fast.
Harry loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, he and Gerri traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Gerri remembers the time they were having breakfast in Las Vegas, just before continuing on their trip to California. Not expecting to be in the restaurant very long, they parked at a street meter and went into the Golden Nugget for breakfast. Harry left to put more money in the parking meter while Gerri waited. After about 30 minutes, breakfast had arrived but Harry had not returned. After another hour or so, Gerri went looking for him and found him in the casino playing the one-arm bandits "just a little more". On a trip to Virginia to see Nancy, Harry decided to chop wood to burn in the fireplace. He got carried away with how good he was at chopping wood and chopped so much that he ended up with a hernia. He vowed to never do that again. On another trip, he and Gerri got stranded in a icestorm in Arkansas. They ended up sleeping in cots in the community center. Harry thought it was great adventure.
Harry might have been a bit mischievous, but he was also a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. When his sister-in-law, Jean, was in the hospital for 11 months, he tried to go to the hospital every day to see her. He made a special point to take his niece, Wilma, home from the hospital, after the birth of her daughter, Ashley, and then after the birth of her daughter, Casey. Harry was a surrogate father to Wilma when her father was out of the country, and was delighted to be the one to give her away at her wedding. Harry was also a surrogate grandfather for Ashley and Casey and used to always make sure they got to see Santa Claus. Years before, the entire family was delighted when Harry dressed up as Santa Claus for his nieces, Nancy and Karen, and came down the driveway going "ho-ho-ho".
Harry has suffered from severe medical problems since 1973. First, he developed arterioschlerosis, and then phlebetis. The problems kept getting worse, and he had to medically retire from Tinker in 1976. He developed a slipped disc, then had a heart attack. Then in 1987 he had a second massive heart attack, accompanied by grand mal seizures. The doctors said he could not live, that he had been without oxygen too long and was braindead. But he woke up 3 days later. A few months later, he had emergency surgery because he had contracted a severe infection in the area where his sternum and rib cage had been destroyed during resusitation. The doctors had to remove all the bones in his chest as well as an inordinate amount of tissue and muscle. They grafted and replaced as best they could, rerouted major muscles to fill in the space, sewed him up, and waited. The doctors hailed him as their miracle baby. Then he was found to have a large cancer on his left kidney, which had to be removed. Then his right kidney failed and he had to go on dialysis. For years, Harry had one medical problem after another. By 1998, he had lung disease, coronary vascular disease, high blood pressure, he was legally blind, had lost all of his hearing in his right ear and 50 percent in his left, had total kidney failure, had congestive heart failure with only 25% capacity left in his heart function, and had contracted a deadly infection for which there is no known cure.
He was a fighter. Time and time again, he survived major illnesses that would have killed the average person. We called him the energizer bunny, because he just kept going and going. Throughout all of his pain and suffering, his family kept searching for the reasons for all these illnesses and why one man should have to endure so much. We are reminded of the disciples who brought the blind man to Jesus and asked, "Why is this man afflicted? Was it his parents' or his own sin?" "Neither," the Lord replied before healing him, "It is that my glory may be shown."
We each have our memories of Harry and we will be comforted by those wonderful memories. We will remember his caring, compassionate personality. We'll remember how he use to polish his car so much that we thought he would rub off the paint. We'll remember how he cherished his last trip to Florida and walking on the beach picking up shells. We'll remember that sometimes he didn't talk a lot, but that he was always there when someone needed him. We will remember how he liked to go to the grocery store and buy paper towels and aluminum foil, and that Gerri has more than she can possibly ever use. We will remember how he loved cowboy movies and football. We will remember how he treated every woman with the most gracious respect, and how the ladies loved him for it. We will remember that he suffered through so many illnesses and never complained but was ever hopeful that once again he could beat the odds. We will remember that if ever a man deserved a gold star in heaven, it is Harry Ladd. He was a dear, sweet man, who always managed to smile throughout it all. When Harry died, his doctor said that "Harry Ladd was a true gentleman who will live on in the hearts of so many people. He touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew him, you loved him". I know all of you agree with this statement. He died as he lived, with dignity and grace. And I think it is appropriate to mention that he died on the same date, January 8, on which his father died in 1971. I loved my dear Poppy more than I can ever say.
Copyright©2010Nancy Ladd. All Rights Reserved.
We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of our church, my dear father, Harry McKinley Ladd, Jr. A lot of people called him "Harry". Some of the children in his family and among his friends call him "Uncle Harry", but mostly everyone just called him "Poppy". And that name suited him just fine. Young people, old people, nurses in the hospital, members of his family, and I just called him Poppy.
Harry was born August 5, 1921, in Oklahoma City. He graduated from the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore, Oklahoma, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He worked in his father's business from 1946 to 1951 and then began a federal service career at Tinker AFB. He retired from Tinker on January 1, 1976, with more than 28 1/2 years of service. A 32 degree Mason for more than 50 years, he was a member of Siloam Lodge 276. He was also a member of the Shrine for more than 50 years, and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star Chapter 491. He was a member of this church since 1942. Harry is preceded in death by his parents, Olive and Harry Ladd, Sr. He is survived by his wife, Geraldine (Gerri); his daughter, Nancy; his sister, Betty Bemusdaffer; and many other family members and friends that he loved dearly.
All of you have your special memories of Harry, but I would like to share a few. From his earliest days, Harry was sweet and caring, but also a bit mischievous and adventuresome which often got him into trouble. Even as a baby, he crawled out the front door and down the street to the corner where his mother got off the streetcar when she came home from work. Harry's grandmother had to chase him down and take him home. When Harry was about 10, his father smoked cigarettes that he had to roll from loose tobacco. Harry often talked his grandmother into rolling the cigarettes, so he could sneak a few and hide behind a big shrub at the back of the house to smoke them. One day his mother saw all the smoke, came out of the house, and caught him. She made him sit on the front steps of the house, for everybody to see, and to smoke until he got sick.
About that time, Harry's daddy worked for the Oklahoma City Police Force, and had put some moonshine in the refrigerator. One Saturday, Harry and four other kids were going to the movies, but the show didn't start for a couple of hours. Harry didn't know what to do in the meantime. His grandmother told him to lie down and take a nap. He tried but just couldn't sleep. He decided if he had a little taste of that moonshine that he could probably sleep. So, he drank some. It didn't help very much, so he drank a little more. After several trips to the refrigerator Harry got drunk and totally missed the show.
Once day Harry and his pals dug a cave in the vacant lot behind his house. They hauled the dirt out in buckets and scattered it so no one would know what they were doing. They dug a cave big enough for four or five kids to sit in and then stole some boards and laid them across the top of the cave along with dirt so nobody would know the cave was there. To get into the cave, they would remove the boards and lower themselves into the ground, where they built fires and baked potatoes, stealing potatoes one at a time from their houses. One day a contractor plowed the vacant lot using a horsedrawn plow. The horses fell through the boards into the cave, and Harry again was in a heap of trouble.
Harry liked to ride his bike over to his grandparent's house. He loved to eat, and his grandmother would cook what he wanted, which was meat, potatoes, biscuits, and chocolate pie. Plus, he knew his cousin, Jean, would be there and he enjoyed putting her on the handlebars of his bike and pedaling as fast as he could down steep grades to hear her scream. Harry worked as a soda jerk during Junior Highschool. His sister, Betty, often came to the drugstore, climbed on a stool, and asked Harry for ice cream and something to drink. Harry always fixed something for them both. Each week when payday rolled around, Harry was in debt to the drugstore.
After Harry got his drivers license, he would beg his parents to let him use the car. They often agreed to let him use it, as long as he took his sister, Betty, with him. He would stuff her in the car, drop her off at the local roller rink, and then go on about his business. This happened so often that Betty almost became queen of the roller derby.
Harry's parents sent him to Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. Every weekend he got lonesome and made up any excuse he could think of to come home. He had just about run out of excuses, when he decided to call his parents and tell them he had a toothache. They decided to cure him of his tall tales. They went and got him, brought him to Oklahoma City, and asked him which tooth it was. He randomly pointed at one, and the dentist yanked it out. At the Academy, all cadets were assigned horses. Harry was the shortest cadet on campus and they gave him the biggest horse. He said the only way he could get on that horse was to take a flying leap and be ready to gallop.
After military school, Harry served in the Army during World War II. When his tour was over, he returned to Oklahoma City. And one day in 1947, Harry was on his way to Tulsa, where his sister lived. On the way, he stopped in a restaurant to get a cup of coffee. Gerri and her younger sister, Lena, were just teenagers and were working there as waitresses. Harry stopped in every day to see Gerri, and one day took his sister in with him and told Gerri that Betty was his girlfriend. Gerri got mad and poured coffee all over him.
Harry started working in his father's stove repair business after getting out of the Army. One day he and his dad were working on a stove in a very nice residence. Harry's dad disconnected the stove, stuck a rag in the gas pipe, but failed to shut off the gas. They were working in a dark area and when they lit a match to check the stove connections, everything exploded. Harry saved his dad's life. He somehow dragged him into the truck and drove to the hospital emergency entrance, where he passed out. When he regained consciousness, he and his dad were bandaged from head to foot and were sharing a hospital room. Both of them had second and third degree burns.
After a whirlwind courtship, Harry and Gerri were married 51 years ago in this church at its downtown location with Reverend Bill Alexander as the officiating minister. One day soon after they were married, Harry wanted to impress Gerri, and so he made up a wild story about how he had once been a cook at a restaurant. Gerri surprised him by getting both of them part-time jobs at a local restaurant, with Harry having to cook. Harry learned to cook real fast.
Harry loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, he and Gerri traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Gerri remembers the time they were having breakfast in Las Vegas, just before continuing on their trip to California. Not expecting to be in the restaurant very long, they parked at a street meter and went into the Golden Nugget for breakfast. Harry left to put more money in the parking meter while Gerri waited. After about 30 minutes, breakfast had arrived but Harry had not returned. After another hour or so, Gerri went looking for him and found him in the casino playing the one-arm bandits "just a little more". On a trip to Virginia to see Nancy, Harry decided to chop wood to burn in the fireplace. He got carried away with how good he was at chopping wood and chopped so much that he ended up with a hernia. He vowed to never do that again. On another trip, he and Gerri got stranded in a icestorm in Arkansas. They ended up sleeping in cots in the community center. Harry thought it was great adventure.
Harry might have been a bit mischievous, but he was also a caring and compassionate man who always put the needs of others first. When his sister-in-law, Jean, was in the hospital for 11 months, he tried to go to the hospital every day to see her. He made a special point to take his niece, Wilma, home from the hospital, after the birth of her daughter, Ashley, and then after the birth of her daughter, Casey. Harry was a surrogate father to Wilma when her father was out of the country, and was delighted to be the one to give her away at her wedding. Harry was also a surrogate grandfather for Ashley and Casey and used to always make sure they got to see Santa Claus. Years before, the entire family was delighted when Harry dressed up as Santa Claus for his nieces, Nancy and Karen, and came down the driveway going "ho-ho-ho".
Harry has suffered from severe medical problems since 1973. First, he developed arterioschlerosis, and then phlebetis. The problems kept getting worse, and he had to medically retire from Tinker in 1976. He developed a slipped disc, then had a heart attack. Then in 1987 he had a second massive heart attack, accompanied by grand mal seizures. The doctors said he could not live, that he had been without oxygen too long and was braindead. But he woke up 3 days later. A few months later, he had emergency surgery because he had contracted a severe infection in the area where his sternum and rib cage had been destroyed during resusitation. The doctors had to remove all the bones in his chest as well as an inordinate amount of tissue and muscle. They grafted and replaced as best they could, rerouted major muscles to fill in the space, sewed him up, and waited. The doctors hailed him as their miracle baby. Then he was found to have a large cancer on his left kidney, which had to be removed. Then his right kidney failed and he had to go on dialysis. For years, Harry had one medical problem after another. By 1998, he had lung disease, coronary vascular disease, high blood pressure, he was legally blind, had lost all of his hearing in his right ear and 50 percent in his left, had total kidney failure, had congestive heart failure with only 25% capacity left in his heart function, and had contracted a deadly infection for which there is no known cure.
He was a fighter. Time and time again, he survived major illnesses that would have killed the average person. We called him the energizer bunny, because he just kept going and going. Throughout all of his pain and suffering, his family kept searching for the reasons for all these illnesses and why one man should have to endure so much. We are reminded of the disciples who brought the blind man to Jesus and asked, "Why is this man afflicted? Was it his parents' or his own sin?" "Neither," the Lord replied before healing him, "It is that my glory may be shown."
We each have our memories of Harry and we will be comforted by those wonderful memories. We will remember his caring, compassionate personality. We'll remember how he use to polish his car so much that we thought he would rub off the paint. We'll remember how he cherished his last trip to Florida and walking on the beach picking up shells. We'll remember that sometimes he didn't talk a lot, but that he was always there when someone needed him. We will remember how he liked to go to the grocery store and buy paper towels and aluminum foil, and that Gerri has more than she can possibly ever use. We will remember how he loved cowboy movies and football. We will remember how he treated every woman with the most gracious respect, and how the ladies loved him for it. We will remember that he suffered through so many illnesses and never complained but was ever hopeful that once again he could beat the odds. We will remember that if ever a man deserved a gold star in heaven, it is Harry Ladd. He was a dear, sweet man, who always managed to smile throughout it all. When Harry died, his doctor said that "Harry Ladd was a true gentleman who will live on in the hearts of so many people. He touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew him, you loved him". I know all of you agree with this statement. He died as he lived, with dignity and grace. And I think it is appropriate to mention that he died on the same date, January 8, on which his father died in 1971. I loved my dear Poppy more than I can ever say.
Copyright©2010Nancy Ladd. All Rights Reserved.
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