John J. Harmon ’42

John Harmon died Aug. 18, 2010, in the Episcopal Church Home in Rochester, N.Y. He spent his life trying to create a better world for mankind.

After graduating from Princeton in 1942, John served with the British Army as an ambulance driver for the American Field Service from 1942 to 1945. He was in Germany for the closure of the death camp at Bergen-Belsen. The British recognized his service by awarding him membership in the Order of the British Empire.

After the war, John attended the Episcopal Divinity School and was ordained in the Episcopal priesthood in 1950. Initially he served as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Rochester and then as associate director of Packard Manse, a social-justice organization in Boston. His efforts to promote social justice never ceased. He raised funds for Southern Christian Leadership Conference units in the South. In carrying out this mission he was run off the road by the Klu Klux Klan and jailed by the police in Williamston, N.C.

For the last 15 years before his retirement in 1985, John returned to Rochester and served as patient-relations coordinator at the Strong Memorial Hospital.

John is survived by four daughters, Betsy, Cappy, Sara, and Peggy, and five grandchildren. His wife, Jane, predeceased him. To them all, the class sends condolences.