Lucy "Elise" Harris

Elise Harris passed peacefully from this life on June 8, 2017. She was 2 months short of turning 100 years old. Lucy Elise Henderson Harris was born on August 21, 1917, in Clifton Idaho. She was the third child of William Martin Henderson and Clara Verena Howell Henderson. She spent her childhood and youth living on her parents' farm in Clifton, and had many happy memories of those times growing up in a large and happy family. She loved learning and was a good student. She was proud of the fact that she graduated as the valedictorian of her class in High School. She wanted to go on to college and she attended Utah State University for a short time, but her finances ran out and she had to return home. Eventually she moved to Oakland, CA, to attend Merritt Business College on a program that placed young women in homes where they would do housework and tend children in return for room and board and enough money to pay for their schooling. She completed her training there as a bookkeeper and went to work for Chevrolet Motor Company in Oakland in 1939. She met her eternal companion, Jack E Harris, at a dance sponsored by a local women's club, and they were married on August 30, 1940 in Oakland. Her first two children, Ted and Dale, were born while she and Jack lived in Oakland, and their third child, Diane, was born after they moved to Chico, CA. Service was one of the hallmarks of her life. She was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and served in many capacities over the years including the Primary and Young Womens organizations and the womens Relief Society. After Jack retired, they served a church mission in southern Alberta, Canada on an Indian reserve where they came to love the Native Americans they worked with and touched many lives. After Jack passed, she served another mission as a family history missionary in Salt Lake City. She lost Jack on November 16, 1992, and has been waiting to be reunited with him ever since. She was also preceded in death by her parents, her siblings Max Henderson, Gayle Henderson, Richard (Dick) Henderson, Amy Carter and one little great granddaughter she never got to meet. She is survived by her sister Kerin (DeLoy) Baker, her children Ted (Heidi) Harris, Dale (Laurel) Harris, and Diane (Jim) Wariner. She is also survived by twelve grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren. Elise was a great wife, mother and grandmother and we will all miss her greatly.