WEST POINT – Less than 24 hours after Robert Harrell’s unexpected death, his family has gathered Tuesday in the home where he raised his seven children next to Old Waverly Golf Club.
In the preceding hours, there have been tears and there will be more tears to come, but there is none of that now.
They have gathered to tell stories about Harrell, 77, who died Monday evening. The stories, much like the man, are happy. His seven children, their spouses and some of his 30 grandchildren, who drift in and out of the family room over the next hour, compete to share their memories of “Papa,” often talking over one another, each sharing a vivid memory.
An hour later and the stories of Robert Harrell are still flying around the big family room.
“And we haven’t even got started,” his son, Bob, says.
As his family exchanges their tales, a portrait emerges of a man who always seemed to be smiling, always happy, always busy, always curious.
He was a man who loved lavishly. In no particular order, he loved building things (like his father, Robert was in the construction business, his last big project was building Old Waverly Golf Club on land he sold to his brother-in-law, George Bryan), being outdoors, traveling, Coca-Colas, Canadian Mist whiskey, the West Point Rotary Club, his church family at First United Methodist, Mississippi State athletics (he graduated with a degree in engineering from MSU in 1959), the city of West Point (where he lived all his life), traveling the world and math, a subject that never ceased to fascinate him.
But mostly he loved people, especially his family and Carolyn Bryan Harrell, his wife of 57 years, whom he met when they were 10 years old.
An unexpected passing
Monday afternoon, he had just put the finishing touches on yet another of his many “projects,” an impressive 18-foot-tall Indian tepee he had built for his grandchildren. He had finished digging a hole for a flagpole and had left to go to the store to pick up some Cokes. About 5:30 p.m., Harrell crashed into a light pole and was pronounced dead at the scene, although authorities told the family he had likely died before the crash, most likely of a heart attack.
“We were stunned,” said Jimmy Bryan, Harrell’s friend of more than 70 years. “He was one of those guys everybody thought would live to be 100.”
Visitation will be held today from 4-7 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in West Point with services Thursday at 10 a.m. at FUMC.
“I imagine the crowd is going to be unbelievable,” Bryan said. “Everybody loved Robert.”
The feeling appears to have been mutual.
“You hear all the time about somebody that never met a stranger. Well, it was true for Robert,'” Bryan said. “He loved everybody.”
Bob, who is the Clay County circuit clerk, recalled shortly after winning the election he asked his dad why he never ran for office, given his popularity around town.
“He told me, he wouldn’t ever run for office because he couldn’t stand the idea of somebody not voting for him,” he said. “He said that would just about kill him to know that somebody didn’t like him.”
For a man who never held office or aspired to a position of authority, the rich and powerful were often drawn to him. But power, wealth or prestige seemed to matter little to Robert Harrell, perhaps because he attached little value to those things himself.
He was a man who would quietly give a kid money for college, make wonderful wooden toys for the children he encountered on his many mission trips to Mexico, a man who, for years, hosted exchange students despite his own large family, a man who would sometimes leave cups of ice and Cokes at the curb for the sanitation crew when he carried out his trash.
At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, he was introduced to Chicago mayor Richard Daley, a name Harrell did not recognize. When he asked Daly about his occupation, Daly told Harrell he was the mayor of Chicago.
Without pausing, Harrell told the mayor of one America’s largest cities: “Really? You should meet my brother-in-law, Kenny Dill. He’s the mayor of West Point. Y’all could talk about garbage collection, I bet.”
The storyteller
Harrell loved to tell stories and loved to laugh, especially at his own expense.
“He would tell stories on himself that anybody else wouldn’t dream of telling,” a son-in-law noted.
Some of those stories revolved around one aspect of his character that proved to be, in its own quirky way, most endearing.
“He never seemed to even think about clothes,” his daughter, Beverly Luttrell, said. “When he was going out, he would just grab any coat that was laying around, no matter who it belonged to. It didn’t matter if it fit or what condition it was in. He once wore a coat somewhere that had a dirt dauber’s nest on it. And when he traveled and had to dress up, he never had a suit. He would borrow a suit from somebody, usually one that was two sizes too big.”
On one occasion, a video captures Harrell in a crowd at a party. For once, he is properly dressed for the occasion in a handsome, well-fitted suit coat, white dress shirt, tie, slacks. When the camera pans down, however, Harrell is standing there in white tube socks and sandals.
‘Papa’
It was as a grandpa that Harrell’s exuberance was most in evidence, the kind of grandpa who could give as good as he got when it came to practical jokes, a grandpa that was always encouraging his grandchildren to get outside and play and explore.
“His place out there was like Disneyland,” Bryan said. “He was always building something out there, usually for the grandkids.”
He marked trails all over his 600-ace property and encouraged his grandchildren to explore them. He fashioned a giant 10-foot long arrow out of wood and would move it around the property, challenging the kids to go find it.
And while he was a “fun” grandpa, he was also firm in his gentle way.
“He wanted them to learn from their mistakes,” Beverly said. “He would leave notes around everywhere: ‘Who left this here?’ or ‘Who did this?’ Once somebody stuck a wad of gum on the a piece of furniture. He left a note that said, ‘Who did this?’ and had the names of the grandchildren who were there at the time with a box to check by each of their names.”
“He would get on to you, but he wasn’t mean about it.” one grandson noted. “But he would always call about a week later and say, “You know I’m not mad at you, right?”
Harrell’s death came at a time when the family had gathered for celebrations — one grandson will be married on the property — fittingly at the little chapel he built for a daughter’s wedding. Another will soon be graduating.
Now there will be another celebration, although one heavily-tinged with sorrow.
Robert Harrell will be laid to rest on small cemetery plot on his property near a son-in-law and grandson who have died in recent years.
“Somebody said, for West Point, losing dad was like England losing Princess Diana,’ Bob said. “I don’t know a person anywhere around here that didn’t love him.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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