Jonathan Weeks Handy

Jonathan Handy Obituary

Jonathan Weeks Handy passed away Monday evening, October 15, 2007 with his family by his side at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane after a fortunately brief bout with an aggressive indeterminate cancer.

Jon was born May 16, 1941 in Wareham, Massachusetts to Margaret McCormack Handy and Gardner Weeks Handy and spent his early life on Cape Cod. He grew up in Winchester where his father was a school principal and his mother taught English. Camping and spending time in the woods were favorite pastimes. In Boy Scouts he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

He graduated from the University of Maine with a degree in Bacteriology. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1964 to 1966 he worked several years for the S.B. Penick Company, a division of Corn Products, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Then on a nuclear fellowship he attended the University of Miami, obtaining a master's degree in Radiation Health Physics. Later he received a master's degree in Public Health from the University of Michigan. He enjoyed watching the Michigan Wolverines beat the Ohio State Buckeyes.

From Michigan he moved to California and worked as a sanitarian for the Monterey County Health Department, patrolling the spectacular Big Sur Coast. Later, he accepted a supervisory position with the Napa County Health Department. For the many friends who visited, he was often the designated driver on winery tours.

After Napa he used his Health Physics degree and worked at Westinghouse Hanford. He spent the rest of his career with Hanford companies including UNC, Bechtel, and Fluor. UNC sent him to Shippingport, Pennsylvania for 5 years as the Health Safety Officer for the decommissioning of an old Naval nuclear reactor.

He retired from Fluor Hanford in 2005 and moved to a log cabin with stunning views of the mountains and valleys northwest of Spokane. He was looking forward to many more years of watching sunrises, rainbows, hummingbirds, and grazing deer from his front porch, but his life ended all too suddenly.

He met his wife Fran at the University of Maine while selling his used chemistry textbook. She responded to the ad and decided the price was right. They were married 7 years later and remained married for 28 years. They had 2 wonderful children. Jessica was born in Ann Arbor while Jon was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Evan was born 5 years later in Carmel, California. For family vacations they took many camping trips throughout the West and a number of flights back East to visit grandparents. Last year, Jon visited his son in Kenya where he petted cheetah cubs and spied a pair of leopards.

In recent years he enjoyed kayaking, contra dancing, and many wonderful trips to Glacier National Park with his companion and fiance, Gail Furman of Spokane.

Jon is remembered with great fondness by his daughter Jessica of New York City, his son Evan of Bogota, Colombia, his brother Jason of Boston, Massachusetts, his former wife Fran of Kennewick, his brother-in-law Ed Fowler of Oklahoma City, his fiance Gail of Spokane, and his cat Smudge. His parents predeceased him.

A memorial service with reception to follow will be held Saturday, October 20 from 5 to 7:30 pm at the Hampton Inn, 486 Bradley Boulevard, Richland. His ashes are to be scattered by family at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made in his name to the Rolling Dog Ranch (www. rollingdogranch.com) or the Nature Conservancy (www.nature.org).

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Tri-City Herald from Oct. 18 to Oct. 21, 2007.

Memories and Condolences
for Jonathan Handy

1 Entry

Glen Jones

October 18, 2007

Jon and I worked on the same project teams for several years from the late 70’s with UNC in Richland, to Shippingport in Western PA in the mid-80’s, and then years later with Bechtel on the Hanford ERC contract.

We became particularly good friends at Shippingport, where we were among just a dozen transplants and local hires helping the government oversee the reactor decommissioning project. That was more than 20 years ago. But by circumstance, it was the closest that Jon and I ever were. If the reader doesn’t mind, I’d like to share just a few thoughts about that... as a way of reflecting upon a good man.

In mid-1984, Jon and family (Fran, Jessica, and Evan) planted themselves in the quaint little town of Sewickley, PA on the Ohio River, “convenient” to the airport and most major routes in the Pittsburgh area. But “convenient” is a relative term in the ridiculously hilly region that is Pittsburgh and surrounding townships and counties... like God pushed the covers aside one morning and left them that way... hopelessly rumpled up, and with a few major rivers running through it just to keep things interesting.

In relocating to the area, our respective families were trying to situate where there would be decent schools, services, and such. The Handy’s house was a good 22 miles from the Shippingport job site, some of that distance being modern highway but mostly winding country roads. My family settled in the Pittsburgh suburbs, yet another 10 miles further south along more hills and winding roads.

Jon and I (and co-worker Kathy [Robinson] Charko for a time) commuted together, to and from Shippingport for 2 ½ years. I’d come up from Pittsburgh to Sewickley, and we’d take turns driving either my (new) little Subaru or his trusty old 70’s era gold Dodge Dart.

Friends, if you haven’t lived in Western PA in the Winter time, you’ve missed an experience. In the extreme, 20-something bone snapping degrees below zero along the rivers. And feet of snow several times a season. And if you haven’t traveled through that landscape in a well-intentioned but struggling 70’s Dodge Dart with barely functioning defroster and decrepit windshield wipers... you’ve really missed an adventure. Just picture chattering along miles of tight little country roads through forested valleys, up, over and down ridges, negotiating nearly blind corners, in the darkness, fog, snow and ice, in a 70’s Dart. And the driver, one Mr. Jon Handy, squinting and wiping the windshield interior with a handkerchief, while managing to share with you his unique and usually humorous perspectives on Western society, science, politics, and mankind in general.

Actually, Jon would readily share his views during these journeys in all kinds of weather, all year round. And I enjoyed every bit of it. It made the commute, and the job, more than tolerable.

I remember that when we set up the jobsite office that first summer, it lacked even the most basic of furnishings and supplies (thanks to Admiral Rickover’s famously frugal practices). Jon was having troubles with a sore back, and the old 1950’s relic of a desk chair he had was not helping things. It was among my duties to control the administrative purse strings for the office. Testing the extent of our “autonomy” one day, I invited Jon along on a journey over the river to the metropolis of Beaver Falls which had an office furniture store in a converted old house. I told Jon he could try out every chair in the place and money was not an object (what a vicarious little power trip that was for me). So he did just that... tried out probably 8 or 10 models and settled on one that fit right and was loaded with adjustable features. Sold! We bought it on the spot.

I left Shippingport in mid-’86, heading to Tennessee with Bechtel. Jon and family stayed on another 2 or 3 years, before transferring back to the Tri-Cities. When we crossed paths again at Hanford in the mid-90’s... well, he still had that desk chair. And he still blessed the day we drove over to Beaver Falls to buy it. While it didn’t cost me a red cent, he made me feel as though I’d done him a great kindness.

In my experience, Jon never forgot things to do with friendship and kindness. That’s the type of person he was. Highly intelligent and highly principled, but also warm-hearted, down to earth and caring... about his family (of whom he often spoke with obvious devotion and deep pride), his friends, the people he worked with, and people in general. He could be studiously serious, forthright, and downright stubborn, but also see the humor in most anything. In particular, he wielded a special brand of irreverence for bureaucratic nonsense. The man loved to laugh about things nonsensical... and his observations, broad smile, and that laughter were infectious.

If I did one kind thing for Jon Handy by procuring him a decent chair (with taxpayers’ dollars), he did me a thousand kindnesses, just by being a good friend, sharing his views, and listening to me in return, over countless hours and countless miles, at least half of which were over the back roads of Beaver County, PA in a clunky old gold Dart.

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