Thomas Sinclair Harper

Thomas Sinclair Harper, M.D.

Thomas Sinclair Harper, M.D., died at his home in Arcata on January 20, 2006, two months short of his 91st birthday.

Tom was born to Sinclair and Mabel Harper in Grand Junction Colorado on March 24, 1915. Tom was an avid amateur tennis player in his youth. He earned many trophies in Colorado singles tournaments and playing with his father as a doubles team. He once played (and lost) a match with tennis great Bill Tilden.

Tom graduated from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He received his medical degree from the University of Colorado in Denver in 1942. Immediately after graduation he joined the Navy, where he served for the remainder of World War II. While in the Navy, Tom was stationed at Hawaii and in the South Pacific. He performed his first appendectomy aboard a naval sub chaser on the high seas in a violent storm. After the war he decided to specialize in psychiatry and studied at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, before moving to Westchester County, New York, where he lived until the mid 70’s. .

Tom involved himself in issues of non-violence his entire life. He participated in the 1960’s Peace movement while living in New York. He attended the 1968 protest at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, and others of that era in New York and Washington DC. Tom moved to California in the 1974 at the age of 59, packing all his possessions in a red and white VW microbus. After 5 engine replacements he switched to Honda Civics for the rest of his life. He first settled in Mendocino, then moved north to open his practice in Eureka in 1990. His medical career lasted for more than 60 years until a hip fracture forced him to retire in 2003 at the age of 88.

In recent years he was active in the co-housing movement, and in the local chapter of Veterans for Peace. As recently as November he was participating in the weekly Vets for Peace vigil held in the Arcata Town Square. Affectionately known as Tomas to his second family, the Greenways, he was a friend, father, intellectual companion and confidant.

His brothers, Robert and John and his ex-wife, Maureen preceded him in death.

He is survived by sons, Richard and Paul of Arizona; daughter, Joan and son-in-law Don Morgan of North Salem, New York; and granddaughters, Elizabeth Morgan and Katherine Morgan. He is also survived by Marlene, Shean, Terry, Marla, Heather, James, and Laura Greenway.

Services will be held privately.

The family would welcome memorial contributions to Veterans for Peace, P.O. Box 532, Bayside, CA 95524.

Please sign the guestbook at www.times-standard.com, click on obits.