Harriett Ann High

Harriett High, 92, was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the youngest of the three children of Harriett Ann (Noland) and Judge Bower Broaddus. She graduated from Muskogee Central High School in 1939, and attended her freshman year of college at Randolf Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Virginia. Family movies show her as a vivacious young lady among the other female students, one of which was the German ambassador's formidable looking daughter. With the prospect of war looming on the horizon, her father summoned her away from the East coast, to continue her college education at the University of Oklahoma, from which she graduated with an economics degree, on May 7, 1943. At a time when women lawyers were rare, Harriett attended the O.U., School of Law, graduating first in her class on May 28, 1945. Cherished memories of her years at O.U., always included her Kappa Alpha Theta sisters, with whom she maintained lifelong friendships. Upon graduating from law school, Harriett went to work as an Assistant United States Attorney in Oklahoma City, where she soon met her future husband, Jack E. High, a young lawyer returning from war after having served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the Army. Harriett and Jack were married on October 11, 1946, at the First Presbyterian Church in Oklahoma City, a wonderful marriage which lasted until Jack's death in 1992. Their marriage certificate bears the signatures of their lifelong friends, Granville Tomerlin and Charles Fuson, who signed as witnesses. Jack Michael High was born on July 23, 1947, just nine months and 12 days after the date of the marriage ceremony, the first of the three sons of Harriett and Jack. Resigning from her position with the U.S. Department of Justice, Harriett devoted the next twenty plus years as a devoted and loving wife to Jack, and mother to Jack Michael, David Royce (1950), and Nathan Rainey (1955). As her sons grew toward college, Harriett gradually returned to academia, earning a degree in education from UCO (then Central State College). She joined the faculty at Heritage Hall High School, for the Fall Semester of 1969, teaching classes in economics, civics, and Oklahoma and United States history, through the Spring Semester of 1975. Never content to rest on her laurels, Harriett went back to UCO, graduating with a Masters Degree in professional counseling on May 8, 1980. After several years in private practice as a licensed professional counselor, Harriett volunteered her counseling services at her beloved St. Stephens Presbyterian Church until her retirement in 2002, at the age of eighty. Over the next ten years, Harriett became a prolific and accomplished artist, under the tutelage of her good friend, Martha Eagle. All her life, Harriett devoted herself to the Christian faith, her family, her church family, and to others, in an always positive and loving way. She will be missed. She is survived by her 96-year-old brother, Bower, and his wife Josephine, her sons and her "wonderful daughters-in-law", Jack Michael and Jonna, David Royce and Cheri, and Nathan Rainey and Patti. Harriett's surviving grandchildren and their spouses include Jack's daughter, Judith and her husband, Chris Langley, Jonna's son, Mitchell Butler and his wife, Lauren, and Jonna's son, Jon Butler; David and Cheri's daughter, Katie McKenzie, and her husband, Matthew Anderson; Patti's daughter Megan Warren, Patti's son, Jonathan Johnston and his wife Natalie. Harriett drew no distinctions between grandchildren and step-grandchildren. She aspired to live long enough to welcome great-grandchildren, and beamed with delight upon the arrival of both Charlotte, in 2010, and Oliver, in 2013, the children of Katie McKenzie and Matthew Anderson. Her surviving nieces, Doris Broaddus Truhlar, and Ann Broaddus Bailey, and nephew, Noland Broaddus, are the children of her brother, Sydney Broaddus, now deceased. Harriett's relationships with Doris, Ann and Noland were remarkably close. A celebration of the life of Harriett High will be held at St. Stephens Presbyterian Church, 2424 N.W. 50th Street, on Saturday, January 3, 2015, at 11:00 a.m., with a reception immediately following in the Church's fellowship hall. Senior Pastor, Mark Bradford, will preside. Family graveside services were held on Monday, December 22, 2014, at Fairlawn Cemetery, under the direction of Smith & Kernke Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorials be made to St. Stephens Presbyterian Church.