Obituary: Dave Harner

Dave Harner

Dave Harner

Nov. 4, 1930 - July 25, 2015

Written by Dave Harner during the last year of his life.

Dave Harner was born on Nov. 4, 1930, in Kansas City, Missouri as Donald Ralph Ahring. He was a Depression child, put in an orphanage and adopted by a church of the Brethren minister and his wife, the Rev. Denton David Harner and his wife Ethel.

When he was a child, the family moved from church to church throughout the Midwest. He was able to attend grade school and graduate from the high school in Fredericksburg, Iowa, in 1947.

Dave has had several careers, from a sea-going cowboy at age 17 as part of a church project to a director of hospital education at St. Luke's Hospital Medical Center in Phoenix, from a nurse to an English teacher, from a published medical writer to a Realtor.

He was married to his beloved wife Carol (the former Carol Pierson), who survives him, for more than 50 years. Dave had six children by a former marriage and one child with Carol. All have made him very proud and all survive him, Katherine Botts of Hemet, California, Carol Phillips of Shipman, Virginia, Susan Carpenter of Scottsdale, Arizona, John Harner of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, Judith Harner of Scottsdale, Arizona, Daniel Harner of Corona, California and Virginia Harner of Chino Valley, Arizona. Also surviving him are nine grandchildren; and nine great grandchildren.

He was a man who loved life and who believed himself to be a "child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars." He has been an Arizona resident since 1969, a resident of Prescott and Chino Valley for 26 years.

At Dave's request, there are no public services.


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