HARRIETT HAMILTON BECKETT

Harriett Beckett died peacefully on July 4, 2014, following several months of declining health. In September, she would have been 101 years old. She is survived by her children, Paul A. Beckett and Linda Beckett Yost, by grandsons Jonathan Christopher, Jeffrey, and Patrick, and by two great grandchildren.

Harriett was born in 1913 on the cusp of the "Great War." In her life she traversed a century more packed with transformative technological, social, cultural and political change than any before. She was a perceptive observer of it all, leavening her understanding of people and events with a keen critical sense, humor, and simple good sense. She participated in everything, including the computer revolution, tapping away valiantly on an Apple laptop when she was in her 80s and 90s. Only when the internet came along did she decide she had earned the right to "pass on that one."

Harriett Hamilton was born on her grandmother's kitchen table in Ludlow, Illinois, on September 15, 1913. Hattie's beloved parents (Lew Hamilton and Marie Wilson) both came from small Illinois farms. They were poor, frugal, sturdy, Christian, loving and, in their way, fun-loving. They joined the contemporary movement from farm to town or city as they lived most of their mature years in Urbana, Illinois. They were absolutely typical for their times. Except that they encouraged their only child, Harriett, to enter and graduate from the University of Illinois. In 1935 Hattie joined the 10 or 11 percent of American women who had completed university education.

The Depression notwithstanding, she got a job teaching high school math and English the next fall in Roseville, a town of about 1,000 in western Illinois. There she met the town's aspiring poet, Paul L. Beckett. A whirlwind courtship ensued, with Paul composing a new poem "To Diana," as he called Hattie, each night. They were married secretly, two months after meeting. For almost 60 years from that moment they were as close and as loving a couple as any have ever been up to the time of Paul's death in January, 1995.

Over her life Hattie lived for periods in Illinois, Louisiana, California (three locations), Washington, D.C., New Mexico, Lebanon, and Pakistan. But the capital of her heart became Pullman where she lived most of the time since 1947, when Paul took a faculty position at then-Washington State College. She and Paul fell in love early on with the beauty of the Western mountains, and they loved to ramble the gravel roads of the Palouse.

Her life was rich in experience. She taught at high school and university level (American University of Beirut and Washington State University) and contributed in a variety of voluntary roles (which included managing the fund-raising campaign for the new Neill Public Library as President of the Friends). She was an intellectual leader in Pullman's Fortnightly Club for many years.

Literature and books were throughout a major part of Harriett's life. She loved the Saturday Review of Literature, she doted on the writings and radio talks of poet John Ciardi, and she forged through the entire opus of John Updike. Legion are the friends and relatives who were introduced by Harriett to books that they in turn came to love. She continued reading "big" books up to her last year. When her eyesight began to fail and she could no longer read (or do the daily crossword puzzles!) she knew the end was nearing.

Harriett had a wide range of friends. She maintained a different kind of friendship with each and her probing intelligence took her deep into psyches, sometimes a little deeper than that particular friend might have intended. Over her life, a vast number of people benefited from her wisdom and her strength. Her main complaint about longevity was that so many of the people whom you know and value pass away before you.

Harriett was blessed with good health. She lived in her own home, driving the 1983 Honda that Paul had given her, into her 90s. In 2007, following a serious operation, she moved into Bishop Place in Pullman. There she made a wide range of friends among both residents and staff. One year, she served as a Lentil Queen in the Pullman Lentil Festival. She followed passionately the Mariners baseball team and coached expertly from her sofa. She continued a social life with old friends in Pullman. When sustained reading was no longer possible, she took great pleasure in watching the play of light and colors on the wheat fields and mountains beyond her Bishop Place room. She also took pleasure in reviewing, in her mind, the events of her early life. "I'm spending a lot of time lately with my father," she remarked to her son not long before her death.

On July 4, she died quickly and peacefully. A quiet patriot, she might have enjoyed the fact that she died on Independence Day, and she might have noted that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams also died on the fourth. And she probably would then have noted how much she had liked the novel of that name by John Ford.

A wonderful 100th birthday celebration was organized by her children and friends on September 15, 2013, and she participated with a graceful ad hoc speech. After listening to people saying good things about her, she observed later the resemblance to a memorial service, but one that she was present for. At her wish, no further memorial will be held. She will be laid to rest next to Paul in the Pullman cemetery on July 10. Arrangements are being handled by the Kimball Funeral Home in Pullman.