Harold Stern

Harold Stern (5/21/21-2/27/05)
Herschel ben Reuven

Born in Sandusky, Ohio, to Rabbi Joseph Stern and his wife Regina (nAC.e Schwartz), Harold grew up in an orthodox home with ten brothers and sisters. Hebrew, Yiddish and Hungarian were spoken in addition to English, and Harold exhibited an early gift for singing and speaking, performing in high school plays and chanting torah well enough to move his father to suggest he become a cantor. Harold worked at a young age at his older brother's donut shop and had an active mind and strong, athletic body.

Joining the army to fight in the European Theater in World War II, an intelligence test instead led to his training as an X-ray technician. He was stationed in Panama where he achieved the rank of sergeant. After his Honorable Discharge he went to Los Angeles to study at the respected Actors' Lab on the G.I. Bill. He appeared in plays, studied opera, and sang at many community events. His baritone was admired throughout his life. What Harold possessed in acknowledged artistry he lacked in self-promotion.

In 1955 he met Suzanne Pierrette Josset on a blind date. They were married one month later. They had two sons, Kurt Joseph Stern and Erik Albert Stern, whom they loved and who in turn adore and revere them. Harold was a devoted father and a beaming grandfather of five, Walker, Hannah, Cole, Gustave and Lukas. His understated bedrock commitment to equality and fairness brought the respect and friendship of co-workers in the furniture business and neighbors. He was distraught by injustice and chose to battle it one person at a time. He began studying yoga in the mid-nineteen sixties to help his back. Suzanne soon took it up and became a respected yoga teacher. They were fervent readers and loved to share their home with others. Harold had the widest standard of success and appreciation for others, and perhaps the narrowest for himself. There was a grace and mystery about him, an unmistakable sinew to his presence. He was stalwart and extraordinarily reliable, which contrasted his whimsical singing of snatches of tunes as patted the change in his pocket. In the best tradition of theater, he kept us guessing.

Harold and Suzanne moved from their house in L.A. two years ago to join Erik and his family in Ogden, Utah. In recent years he sometimes could be found dancing with aides in the nursing facilities he lived in. Years ago he obtained a Realtors license, never selling anything but a few outlying acres to himself. He found them beautiful, and his art was to enjoy the wonder to be found in leaving things be. The world knows nothing of its greatest men.

He is survived by his wife, sons, sisters Alice and Annette, brother Jack, daughters-in-law Diane and Nicki, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Funeral services were held in Mission Hills, California on March 1, 2005 and also in Ogden on March 2, 2005.
Funeral HomeMyers Mortuary of Ogden
1875 Monroe Blvd
Ogden, Utah 84401