Jim Harris was known throughout the Eudora community for his love for the city and keeping its history alive.
He was also legendary for his love of Gambino’s.
Harris died at age 85 on Sept. 27 at Homestead of Eudora.
Community Museum Executive Director Ben Terwilliger said the relationship that Harris had with the city was instrumental in helping grow the Historical Society.
His encouragement and advocacy eventually got the city to hire Terwilliger as an intern before he became the executive director.
“I think it would have been – it’s hard to say how things would have played out — but I basically credit him for starting the path to our success by developing a relationship with the city like that, so I’m very grateful for that,” Terwilliger said.
Harris became involved with the Historical Society in 2004, the first year he joined the board of directors. He was president from 2007 to 2010 and retired from the board in early 2022.
He helped create the Community Museum when it was first inside of the old middle school building in 2004. Terwilliger said he wasn’t sure the museum would’ve happened without his help and support.The museum is his legacy, Terwilliger said.
Harris visited the museum almost every day during the 2010s, and progressed many of the museum’s projects during that time.
He was also known for collecting and donating numerous artifacts to the museum, Terwillliger said. Terwilliger estimates he donated over 200 artifacts over the years, the most notable being the Hesper Curtain from the Hesper School.
Terwilliger credits Harris with teaching him about Eudora’s history and helping to fill him in on the small town culture when he came to town.
“He was great to kind of show me the ropes early on, about just Eudora history and about how Eudora is as a community,” Terwilliger said.
Terwilliger said Harris was like a surrogate grandfather to him, visiting him almost every day at the museum to talk history, politics or the community.
“It was a very close relationship we had there,” he said.
Harris was sweet, gentle, supportive and progressive, Terwilliger said.
“He was always learning, was always growing and always evolving, right up until the end and you know, like me, we’re both historians. We were both kind of progressive and that we wanted to look forward and change and evolve, so I admire that about him very much. I hope to be that way when I’m his age, too,” Terwilliger said.
Harris was born in Lawrence in 1938, but lived most of his life in the Eudora area. He graduated from Eudora High School in 1956. He worked as a dairy farmer, custodian and maintenance supervisor in the school district and as an antiques dealer.
Harris was married to his wife, Sharron, for 29 years. Sharron died in January. He is survived by four children: Steven Harris, Amanda Harris-Filbert, Jerri Harris and Candace Harris, his sister, Gloria Burns, and 13 grandchildren.
Harris-Filbert remembers her dad as a good farmer and his willingness to get his kids animals. Harris and her sisters would pick out pigs, name them and raise them.
“We didn’t know that they were, you know, for meat, but it was a lot of fun to take care of them,” Harris-Filbert said.
When they wanted a horse, he got them a horse. When he got out of the farming industry, he began working as a custodian to provide for his family.
“He was just really a good provider, as a dad,” she said.
When Harris and his wife started collecting antiques, they opened a store in one of their old milk barns to sell antiques during the ‘80s. He then had a booth at the Lawrence Antique Mall, and other towns in the area.
“You’d always find him at a sale of some sort looking for special pieces,” Harris-Filbert said.
He has generations and generations of knowledge of Eudora after spending the majority of his life there. He wanted to make sure he kept the history there alive, she said.
Harris was the first friend of Stephanie Jones in Eudora when she and her husband, Nolan, moved to the area in 2017.
Jones went into the Community Museum to look for information on their newly purchased home. She was greeted by Harris, and the duo spent time together ever since.
They called their adventures ‘“field trips,” Jones said. They would go to other historical museums around the area, antique auctions and other errands.
He taught her about the history of her then-newly purchased house, as well as wisdom about other Eudora buildings.
One of her favorite memories is bringing Harris to see hundreds of Christmas trees at Lecompton’s annual display. He agreed to go with her, even if it wasn’t something he absolutely wanted to do, she said.
On Halloween in 2018, Harris dressed up as an Odd Fellows character for the Trunk or Treat. Children were too scared of his costume to even approach, and so was Jones.
“He always said he was shy, but, boy, he was always able to engage with people and share information and I think that’s the best part,” Jones said. “And he was just always so willing to take the time to tell a story about, you know, growing up in Eudora and growing up on a dairy farm.”
Eudora is going to be missing a great man, she said.
Harris was also part of the township board of directors for about 20 years.
Bill Vigneron moved to Eudora in 1986 when he got involved as an EMS and fire volunteer through the township. He met Harris through the township board, and when he was involved with replacing the old station with a new one on 20th Street. Harris helped design, organize and find funding for the project.
“When he has something to say, you need to listen because it was usually a good thought or good information,” Vigneron said.
Harris was a regular at Gambino’s and grew to have close relationships with several of the employees.
Manager Elizabeth Thero served Harris almost every day since she started working at the pizza shop in 2011.
She knew his salad order by heart: iceberg lettuce, peas, a dash of ham and cheese and pickled beets, with olive oil on top and a Diet Pepsi.
“He seemed kind of hard and cold on the outside, but he was definitely a softy on the inside and especially for us in here because we were all pals,” Thero said.
She would help him with his phone if it was not working and he would invite them over to chit-chat or help with something in the house.
Harris even had a Gambino’s shirt so he felt like one of the crew, she said. The crew would get worried if they didn’t see him in a couple of days and wondered what he was eating if it wasn’t his salad.
“We were friends at the, you know, in the last chapters of his life so it was like different friendships than my other friendships. He’s definitely my oldest friend,” she said.
Funeral services for Harris will take place Saturday Oct. 7, with a family burial at the Eudora City Cemetery and a visitation from 10 to 11 a.m. at Eudora Chapel.
His family is asking that memorial donations go to the Eudora Area Historical Society in his honor.
His obituary can be found here.
Reach reporter Sara Maloney at [email protected]
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