Harry Allen Marlow : Turning Points in the life of a Bell High School Graduate (Winter, ’34)

 

By Gail Marlow Taylor

 

We all hold fast in our memory those decisions that unexpectedly turn life’s course. Young Harry Marlow faced one of those decisions in 1938, four years after graduating from Bell High School.  

Harry had come to Bell from Burwell, Nebraska, where he was born on April 14, 1918, the youngest of Lottie and William Marlow’s four children. When he was only an infant, his family moved to Bell, California, next door to Lottie’s sister, Stella Ingram, and her family. Growing up, Harry was especially close to his cousins, the Ingram sisters, Sally, Estelle, Mary, and their neighbors, Jack and Virginia Phinney. When Harry wasn’t working on a project in the Phinney’s backyard woodshop, he was undoubtedly reading a book. He was an avid reader and an enthusiastic Buck Rogers fan.

With his friends, cousins, and sisters, Frances (S ’29) and Florence, and older brother Stanley, Harry’s social life revolved around family, Bell Friends Church, and Bell High School. In high school, he was in the glee club and chorus, taught by “Pop” Hermann. After graduation, Harry delivered the Huntington Park Signal, L. A. Examiner, and then was a Postal Telegraph messenger, a milk man, and, finally, a grocery clerk in Arvo Fallon’s Market. Arvo and his wife Frances Fouke were among Bell’s first graduates.

The summer of 1938 brought a turning point that would change the rest of his life. His good friend, Bill Stivers had started attending Los Angeles’ new Pepperdine College. Bill and his mother urged Harry to continue his education every time they walked into Arvo’s Market. The rest, as they say, is history.

And history intervened again in 1941, with two life-changing events. First, on October 31, yes, Halloween, classmate  Kenneth Hahn introduced Harry to USC graduate student Virginia Brewster, at an International Relations Conference at the University of Redlands. They soon had much in common, discovering shared interests in reading, learning, and seeing the world. But on 7 December 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. Having no deferment, Harry, now a senior and president of the student body, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

He soon deployed to England with the 49th Fighter Squadron, and was trained as a cryptographer. Their next deployment, to Algeria, was undertaken with the greatest secrecy in preparation for the North Africa Campaign. A year and a half later, Harry, now a tech sergeant, was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Signal Corps with duty as  a communication security officer. After his return to the States in 1944, he and Virginia were married and moved immediately to Champaign, Illinois where he had been assigned as an instructor in the Cryptographic Officers Training School at nearby Chanute Field. He was separated from the service as a First Lieutenant in November 1945, returning to Los Angeles with wife and daughter Gail.

Harry was graduated from Pepperdine College in 1946 with a major in social science and a minor in natural science. Then, as a graduate student at the University of Southern California, he became a research assistant to the Dean of the School of Public Administration, and in time was appointed director of the University Civic Center Division in Los Angles. This program provided advanced education and training for public employees. In 1950, he received his Master of Public Administration Degree. Committed to civic service as well as education, he served on the Inglewood City Council from 1950 to 1952.

1954 was to be another major turning point for the Marlows, when USC was selected by the U.S. Foreign Operations Administration to assist the University of Teheran to establish an Institute for Administrative Affairs. Harry was assigned to head a team of USC professors as co-director of the new Institute. For the next four years, he and his family lived and worked in Iran. Virginia taught at the American Dependents’ School, which their son and daughter attended. His responsibilities included planning and implementation of a public and business administrative management program for 400-700 students, training and developing permanent Iranian professional and administrative staff, and establishing a center for research and training in the selection and management of personnel. The Iranian government recognized his many contributions. In 1957, the Imperial Iranian Air Force presented him with the Gold Medal of Cooperation. In 1958 he was awarded the Gold Medal, Educational Supreme Order, from the Ministry of Education for services in the development of higher education in Iran.

Leaving Iran in 1958, the Marlow family then moved to Geneva, Switzerland, where Harry, anticipating a career in an international organization, did post-graduate study in International Affairs at the University of Geneva. Virginia taught at the International School, where the children were enrolled. In 1960, Harry accepted what turned out to be his last formal teaching position, professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

In a major career shift, Harry accepted the call to be Chief Deputy to Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, a position he would hold from 1963 to 1987. At his retirement, in January 1987, Harry was honored with a banquet at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and was presented with a Los Angeles County scroll of commendation for his twenty-five years as Chief Deputy. Some of the achievements in which he played a part included: Los Angeles County’s freeway emergency telephone system, the Sybil Brand women’s prison, Martin Luther King, Jr./Drew Medical Center, the Los Angeles County Paramedic Program, and the financing of the regional rapid transit system.

Retirement brings about changes for all of us. Both Harry and Virginia continued to be active in civic and church affairs, but now they had more time to travel and enjoy their grandchildren. They moved to Leisure World in Laguna Hills, where they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1994. In 2001, after Virginia passed away, Harry moved to Freedom Village in Lake Forest. He maintains contact with his lifetime friends from the 49th Fighter Squadron, Pepperdine College, and USC, and does volunteer work for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, in addition to actively supporting St. George’s Episcopal Church and serving a term as president of the Residents’ Board at Freedom Village. Continuing his lifelong love of learning, he is currently taking classes in writing, exercise, and computers through Saddleback College, enjoys travel, and takes an active and much-appreciated role in the lives of his two children, five grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

 

 

Addendum: Writing this account was an enlightening and enjoyable experience which I could not have had without the help of Sally Ingram Mitchell, my husband Charles, and of course Harry, who checked every word.

 

Gail Taylor

5 Mar. 2006