Harvey G Kittredge, Jr. Obituary (2016) - Beaufort, South Carolina

Harvey G. Kittredge, Jr., A True Original Harvey G. Kittredge, Jr. died in the wee hours of Dec 31, 2016 at age 94 and eight months. A passionate family man who cared above all for his wife and three daughters, he was a music-lover, an irreverent wit who did not suffer fools, a member of Beaufort's OFC, a jokester, Francophile and in one nephew's words, a "true original." The guiding force in his life was his wife Betty of almost 70 years. He called her his "Control Tower." During his last six months when his daughter Sophie wheeled him from breakfast after a stroke, she'd give him a choice between watching TV and facing his wife. And he'd say "I want to see Mommy." He adored her. Born in Dayton, Ohio to Clare Batten and Harvey G. Kittredge, "Kit" survived the rigors of the Hotchkiss School and attended Cornell University, joined the Psi Upsilon fraternity, and was drafted into the Army during World War II. He met Betty at a party in Ohio where their mutual friend, comedian Johnny Winters, cracked jokes for a rapt crowd. Elizabeth Houston was a bright, blazing beauty and artistic Barnard University student with a French mother. Kit never looked back. After he proposed, she called him from Paris on her first trip to France to say "Yes." He left Ohio in such a rush he forgot his toothbrush. Married in Paris in 1948, Betty and Kit moved back to Dayton, where Kit did a stint as President of the Kay & Ess Company. But such was the romantic lure of 1950's Paris that they soon moved to France to live. Kit learned French language and argot at the Alliance Francaise on the GI Bill. He and Betty built a little stone house without electricity on a windswept Normandy cliff. He joined the US Foreign Service in the early 1950s, and the family crisscrossed the globe, living in France, French-speaking Vietnam (between the French and American Vietnam wars), Japan, Israel (he stayed on while his family was evacuated for the Six-Day War) and Washington DC. After Kit retired, he and Betty restored an antique house outside Exeter, NH in Newfields, then spent 25 years facing a moss-draped water view of a Beaufort, SC "creek" patrolled by dolphins and osprey. A lifelong Democrat, Kit's large spirit showed in regular lunches with a self-styled group of South Carolinian retirees who dubbed themselves the Old Farts' Club, some of whose politics were 180 degrees from his. Typically irreverent, he'd answer the phone with: "White House!" A music-lover endowed with perfect pitch, he hated violin lessons as a boy, but fooled his teacher into thinking he was working on music-reading by playing by ear. He was proud to have met gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt in Paris, and music legends Billie Holiday, jazz pianist Art Tatum and bluesman Leadbelly in the US. Once told he had the best stereo system in Israel, he listened to Saint-Saens and the Gypsy Kings at equal volumes. A devotee of the world's dwindling wild places, he traveled with Betty to Canada to see polar bears, Kenya to view vanishing lions and elephants, and Antarctica to see penguins in the melting South Pole. Kit is preceded by his sister Jeannette Lacouture and his beloved nephew "Moby",who shared a memorable Normandy summer unraveling the rural mysteries of making "Calva", Normandy's white lightening. He leaves his wife Betty, his siblings Clare Putnam and John Kittredge, his three daughters--Clare Kittredge, her daughter Sophie Z. "Zaza" Kittredge and Clare's partner Thaddeus J. Jankowski, Jr; his daughter Dr. Annette H. Kittredge and her daughter Kendra Marie Kittredge; his daughter Sophie B. Kittredge and her husband, David B. Murray--and Kit's French nephew Paul-Louis, whom he loved like a son. His family plans a spring celebration of his life. Instead of flowers, please contribute to the National Audubon Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and/or World Wildlife Fund.