John Henry Harp

HARP

Posted By: Lisa Joan Walden (email)
Date: 3/24/2021 at 23:49:00

"Elder John Harp Passes"
For seventeen years an elder, John Harp has labored as a missionary of the church in the Southern States of Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas. Especially has his service been devoted to the work of the church in Texas. He liked the South, and his genial disposition won for him many friends.

His wife writes that he possessed the gift of healing and many were healed under his hands, also that he never lost an opportunity to tell the gospel story and was always willing and ready to defend the cause when an attack was made upon it.

On April 1 of this year, after a lingering illness of seven weeks, he passed peacefully away at Lamoni in his seventy-fifth year of life.

To his first marriage of 1869 there were born nine children, seven of whom survive. He moved with his family from Kentucky to Lamoni, Iowa, in 1880, where he made his home for over thirty years.

A few years after the death of his first wife he was married a second time and went to live in Pearsall, Texas, but returned to Lamoni in August 1921.

He was spoken to by prophecy through Brother Ammon White who told him that his missionary work was finished and that his work was accepted by the Lord and that the angels were rejoicing that he would soon be called home.

He was nursed through his last illness by his children, his son-in-law, Moroni Shippy, and his wife. His last admonition to them was, "Be faithful children." Throughout his illness, he was never heard to complain, but bore his suffering, with patience to the end.

A favorite hymn of his was "The saints shall wear robes as the lilies," which was sung at the funeral service.

Source: The Saints’ Herald - volume 70 (1923) p. 404 [The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints]