The Simmons Say...: January 2009

This was a letter to the editor in today's Reading Eagle. Mom received the real letter from Ron Devlin in the mail, and it had a few more sentences than what the paper printed, but you get the point!

Boone was special friend

Editor:Thank you to Ron Devlin, who wrote the beautiful summary of Harvey Boone’s life (“Direct descendant of Daniel Boone lived quiet life of dignity,” Reading Eagle, Jan. 12).Harvey Boone truly was a special man. I worked with him at the pants factory, where he was the downstairs foreman and main cutter of all pants. He did his job very well.Being a tall, gangly guy, he reminded me of Geppetto, who made Pinocchio. He had a friendly smile, and when he retired, I knew I would miss him.Devlin’s article told the history of his war years. Yes, he was a descendant of Daniel Boone. But to his coworkers, he was a special friend.
Joan E. HerbstBoyertown

Grandmom and Pop-Pop Boone at Mom and Dad's Anniversary Party in 2003

Pop-Pop on Tinian island in the Pacific during World War II, standing in front of the historic B-29 bomber Enola Gay

As many of you know, we lost Pop-Pop Boone on January 1, 2009. This was two days after he turned 92. It has been a hard time since then for all of us. There are so many special memories I have of Pop-Pop that I could not even begin to list them. I am so blessed to have grown up being so close to my grandparents. I also love spending time with Grandmom Boone. It was wonderful to see this article in the Reading Eagle today about Pop-Pop. Check it out by clicking here:
Ron Devlin, 1/12/09: Direct descendant of Daniel Boone lived quiet life of dignity

If the link does not work, here is what the article said. This just sums Pop-Pop's life into a few sentences, but Ron Devlin did an awesome job! This article shows just how honorable Pop-Pop was. I hope all of you have someone special in your life!

Ron Devlin, 1/12/09:
Direct descendant of Daniel Boone lived quiet life of dignity
I would like to have known Harvey M. Boone. He died at age 92 on New Year's Day in his Exeter Township home. Harvey was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone, the legendary frontier trailblazer who was born in Berks County in 1734. I'm guessing that Harvey, a history buff who was born when Woodrow Wilson was president, must have had a few good stories to tell.
It would have been nice to sit on the front porch of his home on Boone Road, about a mile from the historic Daniel Boone Homestead, and chat about, well, the Boones. Harvey was the last Boone on Boone Road, and the last male to carry the Boone surname in a branch of the family that stretches back more than 250 years to James Boone, Daniel's uncle. Harvey, his daughter Eileen L. Weisser says, was never one to brag about his historic lineage. He also didn't talk much about his experience in World War II.
Turns out, Harvey was on the ground crew of the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945. Combing through old photographs, Eileen found a photo of her father standing beneath the cockpit of the big bomber on the runway at Tinian, the Pacific island from which it took off on its fateful mission. Harvey's slim, tan and bare-chested in the old black-and-white photo.
Mildred Boone Green of Birdsboro, Harvey's sister, recalls him being stationed on Tinian. He was in the Army Air Forces from 1941 to 1945, she said."He was one of those who served his time but never said anything about the war, pro or con," said Mildred, 84, a retired bank teller. Mildred said her brother once told her he knew Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay. After the war, like many of his generation, Harvey returned to the same job he held before the war - in his case, a cloth cutter in a pants factory in Boyertown. He worked there 45 years, retiring as a supervisor in 1984.
Except during World War II, Harvey never lived anywhere in his more than nine decades but Stonersville, where he was born. He lived in the same place, a farmhouse with a white-columned front porch, for 80 years.
Harvey, who as a child attended the Friends School in Exeter, clung to the land of his forefathers.Without fanfare, he regularly mowed the lawn at the Friends Meetinghouse in Exeter.
The Boones were Quakers who came to Berks County early in the 18th century. In 1750, Squire and Sarah Boone moved their brood, including 16-year-old Daniel, to North Carolina. Early in the 1770s, Daniel was hired to cut a trail across the Appalachian Mountains to what would become Tennessee and Kentucky. He cut it through the Cumberland Gap and, in 1775, founded Boonsborough in Kentucky.Jim Lewars, administrator of the Daniel Boone Homestead, says Daniel returned to Berks County to visit relatives in 1781 and 1788. Harvey, six generations removed, carried the Boone legacy with dignity. He never bragged, but throughout his life he read extensively about the family history.
Until a few days before his death - two days after he turned 92 - Harvey was reading the latest installment of George X. Meiser IX's "The Passing Scene." He was pleased that it included references to Stonersville.
On family occasions, such as the wedding of his granddaughters, Amy and Lori, Harvey insisted on taking photos at the Boone Homestead.
"With Harvey passing, it's the end of an era," Mildred declared. "I wish the Boone name could have went on, but that's not something you get to choose."

•Contact reporter Ron Devlin at 610- 371-5030 or rdevlin@readingeagle.com.