Harold Eugene Jameson

Hal found and collected arrowheads during his boyhood in Illinois.  His passion for Native Americans, their history, culture, and lore never abated, and he interacted with them whenever he could.  Early on he learned their crafts, using authentic materials:  flintstone for arrowheads, birchbark for canoes and tipees, porcupine quills for wampum, cottonwood for kachina dolls, and red cedar wood for a Northwest Coast Indian mask.

He loved nature:  his training in forestry at Michigan State University prepared him to manage game and wildlife in Michigan’s north woods.  He took his family camping, at first in the southern states and, later, all over the West.  He taught his daughters the names of many plants and trees.

After more science and education study at Michigan State, Hal moved with his family to San Diego in 1955.  He taught science and biology at Dana Junior High and later at Hoover High.  Their home always was full of animals—birds, fishes, cats, dogs, and guinea pigs and hamsters, as well as reptiles and the meal worms and greens to feed them.

Hal loved to sing and had a beautiful bass/baritone voice.  His favorites were Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” which he learned in high school; “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” sung solo at church camp, and the Durufle “Requiem,” sung with the choir at the Mission Hills Congregational Church, now UCC.  He sang in this choir for forty years, and stayed with the church for sixty.

During World War II, Hal served as a meteorologist in the US Army Eighth Air Force, at a B-17 bomber base near Bury-St Edmunds, England. British humor always delighted him, resonating as it did with his own droll but affectionate way of joking.  He must have focused on humor to survive the war.  He was delighted to camp in a pup tent in Paris’ Bois-de-Boulogne, and to be given free rein to explore Paris, after the war finally came to an end.  Hal was deeply grateful to have survived, whereas many of his buddies did not.

He loved his family, loved people generally, and loved to laugh.  Travel was high on his list of priorities, and he explored Europe, Japan, and Latin America, as well as much of the USA.  He lived a long, good life and thanked God every day for the many good gifts he had been given.

His wife, Helen Armstrong Jameson, predeceased him in 2012.  Two daughters, Elisabeth Kathleen Jameson Koenig (John Koenig) and Pamela Jameson Weinisch, and granddaughter Kendra Weinisch, live in San Diego.

No services are planned.

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