John E. Harkins' Obituary
Dr. John Edward Harkins, 81, of Memphis passed away on Friday, June 5, 2020. John was a 4th generation native Memphian; he was the fourth out of five sons of the late Charles Joseph Harkins and Helen Fay Harkins. John was president of Descendants of Early Settlers.
For many years, a loyal member of West Tennessee Historical Society, he served as its president for twenty years or more.
“Johnny”, the name most of his friends and family called him, graduated from Christian Brothers High School. The school later elected him to become a member of it’s Hall of Fame.
After proudly serving in the U.S. Navy for two “hitches”, he did graduate work at Louisiana State University and the University of Memphis, receiving his Ph. D at the U of M.
He worked for the Memphis and Shelby County Library System, which produced his history talk show entitled “Historically Speaking”. He became Memphis and Shelby County Archivist.
John served as Archivist for Memphis University School, but his love was the classroom. He worked as Chairman of the Social Studies Department at MUS, and had a long and happy career teaching there. He wrote two volume history of MUS entitled “The Century Book”.
Having written monthly articles for the “Best of Times”, many of those articles were compiled and published in “The Chronicles”.
John had five other history books published and enjoyed being the guest speaker for a variety of history and genealogical groups.
His family was understandingly very proud of him and his many accomplishments. No one was any prouder of “Johnny” than “Billy” his beloved son, who died at the age of 21.
He leaves to mourn his passing, his wife of 54 years, Georgia Strain Harkins, and two brothers, Charlie Harkins and Jerry Harkins.
Reverend Don Johnson, Chaplin at Kirby Pine was asked by John to officiate at his memorial service.
In lieu of flowers, John had requested that any memorials be sent to the Kirby Pines Emergency Fund for Employees, 3535 Kirby Parkway, Memphis, TN 38115.
There will be a memorial service on Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 1:00 pm at Memorial Park Funeral Home, 5668 Poplar Avenue in Memphis. The service will be webcasted, click on the link below to view at service time.
http://webcast.funeralvue.com/events/viewer/31759
UPDATE Due to technical difficulties, the webcast did not work. We are working to fix this issue as the service was recorded but is not appearing. We will continue to work on the situation to be able to place the service online. Please check back soon. Our most sincere apologies for any inconveniences.
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