HAROLD HESS

Harold E. Hess, 92, a longtime resident of the Casa Grande Valley, died Aug. 30, 2000.

The memorial service will be at 10 a.m. Friday at Coolidge Church of the Nazarene. (Related story in Tri-Valley Dispatch.)

Mr. Hess was born July 26, 1908 in Newton, Kan., to Harvey and Lydia Hess. They were missionaries, and the family was forced to leave India by the British government at the beginning of World War I. They moved to Phoenix, where Mr. Hess' grandfather lived. He and Mr. Hess' uncle had some homesteaded land in the La Palma area, so the family loaded a wagon and moved again on Jan. 1, 1920. Mr. Hess and his brother Orville drove the wagon while the rest of the family traveled by car.

Mr. Hess was one of the first graduates of the old McDowell School in 1922 and was in the first graduating class at the new Casa Grande Union High School (now City Hall) in 1926. In the late 1920s he and his uncle built the community of La Palma, a venture that never developed as expected.

He remained in the Casa Grande area for eight years after high school before going to radio school in Chicago. He then attended and graduated from Pasadena (Calif.) College. He met Ruth U. Beebe there and married her in 1936. They became missionaries and served in Guatemala beginning in 1942. He built a new school for theology students and bought a machine to make concrete blocks.

After 14 years he left the mission service but remained in Guatemala, running a coffee plantation, teaching at an American school and managing a hotel. They moved back to the United States in 1965, living in California and Washington state before returning to Arizona in 1989. They lived in Arizona City for several years before moving to Tucson.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Hess is survived by a daughter, Perlita A. Schroeder of Tucson; two sisters, Dorothy Hess-Pace of Coolidge and Esther Hess-Prescott of Arvin, Calif.; four brothers, the Rev. Orville Hess of Gig Harbor, Wash., the Rev. Ralph Hess of Greeley, Colo., the Rev. Floyd and Clifford Hess of Coolidge; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to: Colegio Mixto Evangelico Nazareno, Iglesia del Nazareno Central, 2da Calle 4-16 Zona 4, Coban Alta Verepaz, Guatemala C.A.