Douglas Harlow's Obituary
Douglas Roy Harlow passed away on Thursday morning, September 29th.
Doug was born on Thursday, July 29, 1943 in Seattle, Washington, to Roy Max Harlow and Anita Martha Harlow (Ball). The family resided in Tacoma, where Doug’s dear baby sister Ann Marie, was born in 1948. The family moved in 1952 to their newly-built home on Point Fosdick in Gig Harbor, Washington, one of the first few homes built near the ferry boat landing for the run between Titlow Beach in Tacoma and Point Fosdick, a ferry run which served travel across the Tacoma Narrows during construction of the replacement for the fallen, original Narrows Bridge.
Along with his best friend, Dennis Salt, Doug enjoyed his time growing up on the Point Fosdick beach and on the waters of Puget Sound. He shared so many stories of growing up in a strict household and of the rebellion-fueled crazy shenanigans that he got up to.
Growing up, Doug attended the Peninsula Baptist Church, and graduated from Peninsula High School. Doug loved to tell of his rugged summer working on a fishing boat in Ketchikan, Alaska, following his high school graduation, to help pay for college. He first attended Seattle Pacific College (now SPU), then transferred to Central Washington State College (now CWU) in Ellensburg, Washington, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering. Doug married his college sweetheart, Joanie Harlow (Derby) in December, 1965, and their first son, Brian, was born in Ellensburg in 1966.
After graduating college, Doug joined the Marines and graduated from the Officer Candidates School of the United States Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. He then trained to become a fighter jet RIO (Radar Intercept Officer, back-seater) at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, eventually earning the rank of Captain and the aviator nickname “Buffy”. He flew missions during the Vietnam War with his pilot, Cliff Lowry, in the F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber jet aircraft out of the military base at Chu Lai in Vietnam, spending his leave rotations with his family in Iwakuni, Japan. On returning from one flight mission, while attempting to land their F-4 on the airstrip in Chu Lai, Doug and Cliff had to execute an emergency ejection from their fighter jet when its main landing gear tires were blown on the exposed runway edge that was being repaired -- unable to safely complete the landing, and too disabled for the plane to fly safely, they ejected from it while still over the runway, and Doug's ejector seat landed him on the tarmac, where he sustained a pulverized tailbone – pilot Lowry luckily landed without harm in mud next to the airstrip where the plane crashed as well. Following the crash, and the injury which impacted him for the rest of his life, Doug refused the Purple Heart decoration because he didn’t believe his injury warranted such recognition in comparison to his more severely injured brothers-in-arms. Doug found great reward in the camaraderie and friendship bonds that he formed with his squadron mates, which lasted his lifetime.
Doug’s family grew while living at the El Toro Marine Air Station in Irvine, California, where sons Craig (1968) and Jason (1970) were each born. Following his service in the Marine Corps, Doug and family returned to the Puget Sound area, where he began his maritime career, first as a tugboat dispatcher with Foss Launch and Tug Co. in Seattle, Port Angeles, and Tacoma, and later as a shipping customs broker with B. A. McKinsey & Company in Tacoma.
Doug and Joanie divorced in 1974, at which time Doug had settled in University Place, across the street from University Place Presbyterian Church, where he was a member for forty-eight years, taught Sunday school, and sang in the choir and in solos and duets. Eventually Doug met and fell in love with Tooky (Edith Soldin), who would be his lifelong love after they married in 1981. In their blended family, Doug and Tooky loved one another’s children as their own – Doug’s three boys, and Tooky’s four children, Cheryl, Deborah, Robert, and Tish. Doug and Tooky shared forty-one happy years together, first in University Place, and later at Point Fosdick in Gig Harbor.
In 1995, when Doug’s aging parents moved from their house on the beach at Point Fosdick to the Narrows Glen senior living community, Doug and Tooky moved in to the home where Doug had grown up. There they formed deep friendships with their Point Fosdick neighbors, who could always count on a friendly encounter with Doug on his daily walks in the neighborhood and along the beach, where he would meet and greet and learn the names and stories of every neighbor, and share his own stories and his takes on the news of the world. He took tremendous pleasure in life on the beach, where he would walk his and Tooky’s cherished dogs, cast for salmon from the shore, and take in his view of the water from his bench in the workshop each morning where he read his newspapers.
Tooky and Doug have always shared their happy place on the waterfront with everyone, especially enjoying the company of their children and their many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They hosted holiday gettogethers for family, friends and neighbors, church and club gatherings, weddings and reunions, and they graciously granted access to the beach with many of their uphill neighbors as well.
Doug loved to watch professional and college football, and supported the WSU Cougars. He also loved going to Cheney Stadium to watch AAA baseball with his sons and their families, just as he did as a child. And he enjoyed many travel adventures around the world with Tooky.
Doug was big-hearted, bright, clever, generous, affectionate and forgiving, a loving and devoted husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, an outgoing, friendly and dependable neighbor, a faithful friend, and a grateful disciple of Jesus Christ.
Doug is deeply beloved and missed by his family and friends, and he is survived by his wife, Tooky; his sister Ann Marie Ikoma and her husband Yori; sister-in-law Irene; son Brian Harlow and wife Christina and their children Nick, Beth, and Patrick; son Craig Harlow and Craig’s children Madeline, Jack, Max, Donovan, and Vladimir; son Jason Harlow and Jason’s son Finn; stepdaughter Tish Griffin; the family of his dear, departed step-daughter Cheryl Benz, Cheryl’s former husband Stephen Benz and their children, Nathan Benz and his wife Karen, Stephen Benz Junior and his wife Angela, and Rachel Hamilton and her husband Chris; stepdaughter Deborah Dorff and her husband Kevin and son Andrew Lyman and his wife Sarah; stepson Robert Griffin and his wife Chen and their daughters, Victoria and her husband Russel, and Amanda and her husband John; as well as fourteen wonderful great-grandchildren.
Doug will be interred at Mountain View Memorial Cemetery in Tacoma, Washington, in a private graveside service.
A public memorial and celebration will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, November eighteenth, at University Place Presbyterian Church in University Place, Washington.
In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the community food bank program at University Place Presbyterian, which is called “Families Unlimited Network” – go to this link and click the “I Want To Give” button in the upper right corner of the page:
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