Obituary of Glen Alfred Harris, Jr.

Glen Alfred Harris Jr. has died, leaving a host of stories and cartoons by which to remember his 86 years. Raised in Seattle, he arrived in Connecticut to study at Yale, got a job at Phoenix Insurance helping to one-up IBM in the nascent realm of data management software, and married Charlotte Clarke. They found a house they liked in Glastonbury and made it their home for life. Whatever else his early years taught, it certainly instilled a knack for merriment and word play, as his sons would come to know from the benign mischief that bedeviled any gathering of Glen with his sister Lynn and brother Trevor. At work and around town, Glen would befriend anyone who liked ideas, puns, fiendish harmonies, or dinosaurs. After Mark and John grew up and moved away, Glen and Charlotte shifted their Cape Cod trips into September (fewer of those pesky tourists), tripled the quantity of blueberries picked every summer, and made themselves helpful at PFLAG support groups. In later years, Glen reveled in the role of Weird Old Grampa to Gemma and Fiona, and the Harris elders slowed down a little. Visits to Mark, or further afield to John, Maeve, and the girls, gave way to “we’ll host, you kids come visit” affairs. But anyone getting a birthday card in the mail still found a cheerfully penned creature or two on the envelope. When Glen lost Charlotte a few years back, the routines shifted again, or in some cases just calcified into laws of nature. The two cats expected their meals on time every day, and Glen grew his own set of glorious whiskers. He conspired with long-time pal Ed Richardson to scout every church supper in central Connecticut, and he animated the daily lunches at the Senior Center. This past winter, as usual, his Christmas tree got watered religiously into late February. We miss Glen very much, while we cherish the way he lived. A celebration of his life will be held in the spring when it is safe to gather.