As spoken as his Memorial Service, January 5, 2025

Each of us here is a unique individual. Yet my Dad, Jim, has struck some of us as a little extra unique. One of the things he taught by example, is to be unafraid to dispense with convention, and follow one’s own view of what seems best. Deeply philosophical, this came out in the way he taught law, leaning into a Socratic style of questioning, and the way he viewed historical and personal evolution, as a process, as he would sometimes say, of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Whatever Dad saw as right at the time, he would stand with the full energy of his conviction behind it.

Just gathering in this church today brought up one example of this. Jim grew up a sincere Christian, Thesis. Then as a young adult he couldn’t square up intellectually with claims taught by his church, and he became an atheist, Antithesis. Jim was in his adamant atheist phase throughout his first marriage, to my beloved mother Elizabeth, and through the youth of myself and my brothers, Frank and David, to a degree that we never imagined he would change. Yet he did come around to seeing the deep value and impact of the spiritual feeling and awareness he could participate in, through Christian observances and faith, and reconciled that within himself, Synthesis. Jim shared that spiritual connection with his beloved second wife, Diane, and it informed their beautiful love for each other. Jim also said that he had recognized that he needed help, and his relationship with the God of his understanding gave him help he needed, and so he advocated for God to their daughters, Amy and Sarah, to a degree that just this week they were incredulous to learn that our Dad had ever identified as atheist.

When I asked Dad this fall what he would like to be remembered for, the answer surprised me. It was about honoring with deep appreciation what his mother, Eunice, and her parents before her had endured and achieved, which gave him the opportunities that he had, to excel academically, and provide well, for his own families. My grandmother Eunice passed away when I was a child, and Dad chose to honor her life and impact by spending the next two years (pre-internet) researching all the living relatives on her side of the family. He contacted each one that he could, travelled to visit several in person, filled a file with pages of notes with what he learned speaking with them, and created a family tree chart, which he then distributed to everyone on it. THAT is the legacy he wanted to be remembered for.

To understand why, I’ll tell you the background story that Dad would tell us. Jim’s maternal grandparents grew up poor. The family of his grandfather Hans Christensen, in Denmark, were so poor they couldn’t afford to feed all their kids. So at the tender age of 7, Hans was sent away from home to work as a farm laborer for another family, not even sharing meals with them, receiving to eat what might only amount to scraps. Yet he learned farming well, and at age 16 or so met and fell in love with Marie, an indoor servant working for the same family. They married, emigrated together to a Danish-speaking town in America, and then, thanks to Lincoln’s Homestead Act, were able to move to land in Western Minnesota, improve the land, and come to own their own farm. They had 11 children, and decided there would be no more Danish spoken at home, to help with their kids’ integration, but there was no high school in their area. Dad’s mom Eunice desired more education, and she became the only one of her siblings to attend high school. To do so, this gentle girl had to move away from home at the age of 13, to another town with a high school, and live with another family. And that education gave her the background needed to be a good match for Jim’s father George, whose father worked for the railroad, and whose mother ran a boarding house, and used his gumption, to become a college graduate.

Jim shared from his own childhood in Edina, Minnesota, that his grandfather Hans was known for sending a live goose from his farm, to each of his children every Christmastime. He remembered as a wee lad, getting chased around their yard by the goose, that they would then eat on Christmas Day. And Dad felt that a valuable contribution he offered through his career, was bringing his understanding of poor and less educated people to his law students, and being able to contribute that perspective to his teaching of the law.

In closing, I want to share that earlier this fall, when Dad had family gathered around him at the UW Montlake hospital, and was really facing the closeness of death, it came to me to tell him, Dad, when you go, all of our love goes with you. I now see the reverse as true as well. He has gone– goodbye, Dad!-- yet his humor, insight, conviction and love, live on in all of us who knew him.

Professor Hardisty taught me criminal procedure in the 1990s. Although I went to an Ivy League college, I wanted to practice law in Seattle. Being in his class felt like Harvard. He was a true devotee of the classic Socratic method, made familiar in "The Paper Chase." For his exam, I memorized the holdings of hundreds of Supreme Court cases that remain with me still. In an era where students resent having to work or spend their time in class surfing the web on their laptops, I am so fortunate to have been taught by the best of the old school.

May his memory be a blessing.