Oliver W. Harris

Oliver Wendell Harris, Jr. 99, passed February 18, 2023. Graveside service will be Monday, April 17, at 11:00am at Crown Hill Cemetery. A reception and time of fellowship will follow at the Cut Bank Moose Lodge.

Oliver was born August 2, 1923, near Brinkman, Oklahoma as a sharecropper’s son. His family of eight migrated through California, working in fruit orchards, and in 1931 reached northern Idaho where they settled.

Oliver was a proud veteran of WWII. He served in the HQ CO 513th PIR, 17th Airborne and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, Operation Varsity Jump Over the Rhine, and the Central Europe Ruhr Valley Campaign.

Using the GI Bill, Oliver received a mining Engineering degree. Early in his career he worked as a Smoke Jumper in Idaho and Montana and at various mines in the Northwest. In the mid 1950s he started working for the Bureau of Reclamation in Washington State and then on to missile silo construction for the Corp of Engineers thoughout the Midwest and Northwest. In the mid 1960s he was involved in building dams on the Snake River and eventually retired from the Department of Energy.

In 1948 Oliver fell in love with and married the beautiful Irene M. Berkram. He is survived by their 6 children Roma Lee Fuson (Ralph), Craig Harris, Roger Harris (Kathy), Mary Harris, Karen Rickert (Tim), Van Donley, multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren, and Oliver's younger brother Thomas Harris.