Harold Lawrence Janssen

Harold L. Janssen12/22/29 – 8/11/20 

 Harold (Hal) was born in Pomeroy Iowa.  Hal was the youngest of three boys born to Henry and Hattie Janssen.  Hal was raised on a farm but knew early in life that farming was not his future.  It’s not that he minded hard work, quite the opposite, he just wanted to make his living with his mind, not his back.  He went to elementary school in Pomeroy and high school in Fort Dodge.  It was here that he met and fell in love with Rosemary Agnes Lucas.  On a very special night, he and a friend followed her (and her friend) home from the movie theater.  The rest, as they say, is history. Hal and Rosemary left Fort Dodge on a train bound for Arizona (where Hal was stationed in the Air Force), and were married in Chandler, Arizona on December 24, 1948.  He was 19 and she was 20.  Conrad Derk (Derk) Janssen was born in Mesa, Arizona about 10 months later on October 15, 1949.  Hal graduated with a Master's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Iowa (the Hawkeyes).  While in the armed services, Hal, Rosemary, and Derk lived in various places from Oklahoma to Alaska, and then moved back to Iowa City.  Iowa City is where Andrew Main Janssen was born on December 2, 1955.  Hal wanted more out of life and ultimately took a job with the Northrop Corporation in Long Beach, California in 1957.  They packed up their 1949 Hudson and moved to Long Beach.  Eric Edward Janssen was born soon thereafter on July 26, 1957.  Matthew Lawrence Janssen came a year later on August 30, 1958.  Eric and Matt were both born in Long Beach, California. Hal ended up working for the Northop Corporation for 33 years.  He ended his career there as Senior Vice President of Human Resources.  While at Northrop, Hal had his first (of two) open heart surgeries at age 39.  His first open heart surgery was one of the first one hundred in the country at the time.  Hal knew it was the only way to stay alive and he never looked back.  After the surgery, Hal completely changed his diet and began walking.  He walked and walked and walked.  He walked at lunchtime at Northop and at one point the staff at Northrop calculated he had walked 10,000 miles.  He had his second open heart surgery at age 60.  Thousands had been done by then and it was a much safer operation.  He also worked (after retiring from Northrop) for a small head-hunting group in Santa Barbara called Mission Research for another nine years.  Hal spent a big portion of his life driving - he loved to drive.  He drove trucks in college (to help pay his way through school), drove the family on numerous occasions to the Sierra Nevada mountains on fishing trips, and one time in the summer of 1967 he drove the family to Iowa in a 1966 Mercury Park Lane (the model with the reverse slanted window in the back).  The trip lasted one month and involved 5000 miles of driving – all done by Hal.  He stopped at 10 National Parks along the way so the boys could learn about nature and the environment.  The Mercury was struck by lightning in Utah on the way to Iowa.  The lighting hit the carry-all on the top of the car, traveled around the metal frame, and burned four small holes in the roof of the car.  Hal stopped a few miles later at a hardware store and filled the holes with caulking and kept going. Once, near the end of high school, Hal owned a car in Fort Dodge that only went backwards.  He drove that car for several months around town (yes, backwards) until one night the police showed up at the Janssen family home.  Henry (Hank) Janssen was not too happy about the police being at his front door so the car was sold soon afterwards.  Hal's kids always wondered why their father was so good at driving backwards.   Hal loved sports.  Hal was very good at basketball, football, and track as a young man, and later in life he excelled in softball and golf.  He played in a softball league in Long Beach, California for several years in the mid to late 1960's.  You always knew he was coming to the plate because all the outfielders would move back.  It didn’t seem to matter much though because he led the league in home runs for three years and would often hit the ball out of the park – into the parking lot.  Hal was a principled man and lived a principled life.  He believed in hard work, honesty, and perseverance.  He treated every person of every color fairly and lived exactly how he believed.  He was also a quiet, but staunch protector of the environment.  He was a wonderful husband, an amazing father, and a pillar of integrity in every neighborhood in which he lived.  Hal was the type of person that needed a challenge.  As soon as he had his sights on it, he never looked back.  He was driven to complete that challenge.  He was not only a great father, he was a great mentor to his kids and their friends.  He loved to hear about your challenge, how you were planning on approaching it, and then offered (gently) his advice. Hal was a natural leader and never steered away from a challenge.  Hal was also a very funny man, but didn’t get a chance to show that side of him until later in life.  Hal also loved music and brought home a guitar one day in the mid-1960’s.  He was left-handed but brought home a right-handed guitar.  He claimed he intended on learning it right-handed, but it’s more likely he knew that one or more of his boys would eventually pick it up and that was his quiet way of encouraging music.  He lived a fulfilled life and will be sorely missed. I suppose the best way to describe Hal is to quote him.  In a family history book Hal put together in the late 1990’s, he wrote this about what he learned from his parents – “But perhaps the single most important lesson we learned from their example was that there would never be a burden too heavy to carry nor a price too high to pay to insure the survival of the family.” Hal lived his last 12 years in Prescott, Arizona, where a family only gravesite service will be held.  He loved the mountain views around Prescott, the friendly people, and high altitude air.    Hal is survived by his wife Rosemary (of 71 years), his sons Eric (Normajean), and Matt (Vicki).  Hal was predeceased by his father Hank, his mother Hattie, his brothers Ken and Henry Jr., and his sons Derk and Andy.  Hal is also survived by five grandchildren and one great grandchild.