David Vernon Harsh

Reverend Dr. David Vernon Harsh, age 85, of Madison, Wisconsin, died on Saturday, July 13, 2024, at University Hospital in Madison after a fall earlier in the week. He will be greatly missed by Ann Annette (Archer) Harsh, his wife of 63 years; two children: Brent (Mehnoush Banaei) Harsh, and Heidi Annette (Steve) Clem; two grandchildren: Elika Harsh and Alec (Callie Ramsey) Harsh; a brand-new great-granddaughter, Maelene Honey Harsh, who he was able to meet for the first time earlier this spring; sister Mary (Bob) Holtan; 7 nieces and nephews: Leah, Treva, Hillarie, Brett, Tiffany, Jennifer, and Jeff; and numerous great-nieces and nephews.

A Celebration of Life memorial service will be held at Bethany United Methodist Church in Madison, WI on August 17, 2024 at 11AM followed by a lunch at the church. Family will be at the church for visitation prior to the service.

 Born March 10, 1939, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Vernon Gordon Harsh and Loraine (Vesbach) Harsh, Dave was raised there and attended Pulaski High School where he enjoyed music and history. He was the first-chair bassist in a Milwaukee Youth Symphony and also played in jazz clubs at a very young age and only got away with this because of his height! 

Dave’s love of music led to a scholarship on the bass at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1957 where he majored in history and philosophy and not music, much to the scholarship chairman’s chagrin!. Dave met Ann Annette Archer in their early years at Cornell, and they were married the afternoon of their graduation day in the college’s Allee Chapel on June 5, 1961. 

They spent the next four years in Evanston, Illinois while Dave studied at Garrett Theological Seminary in preparation for ordination as a Methodist minister. During this time he served as the associate pastor at Bay View MC in Milwaukee, followed by his first charge at Asbury UMC in Janesville where the congregation was constructing a new church building. In 1971, the conference sent him north to Sturgeon Bay for 7 years as pastor of the Sturgeon Bay and Jacksonport UMCs. Falling in love with Door County, Dave was able to purchase a small cottage on the Green Bay waters which became home base, no matter where he was serving, for the rest of his life. During his time in Sturgeon Bay, Dave finished work on his doctorate at Garrett, writing a thesis on Job and creating an education curriculum “lab school” project. As a United Methodist minister, Dave was next called to serve St. Paul’s UMC in Green Bay (1978-1981), Trinity UMC in Chippewa Falls (1981-1989), then served a term as the southwestern District Superintendent which was followed by his final church, Bethany UMC in Madison.

Retirement after 40 years in active ministry in 2001 found Dave moving into the larger home they had built next to the cottage in Door County. He and Ann enjoyed the next 18 years on the Green Bay lakeshore, traveling the world for both pleasure and continuing volunteer mission work as an active member of his former church in Sturgeon Bay. Most recently Dave and Ann moved to the Oakwood community in Madison, just blocks down the road from his old charge, Bethany UMC, and resumed membership there.

As a pastor, Dave was known for preaching entertaining, positive and energizing sermons with a focus on volunteer mission work and service. A favorite sermon, which many still remember, featured him singing “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler On The Roof and how those lyrics relate to charitable giving. 

Every church he served witnessed an expansion of their youth groups and these always included summer work teams around the US and the world. He led trips to Cuba, Senegal, Liberia, Costa Rica, the Palestinian West Bank, Vietnam… but especially Bolivia which has held a special place in his heart since the 1960’s and has been a focus of much of his volunteer and fundraising efforts. Just two weeks before he died, a group from Bolivia including the Bolivian Methodist Bishop visited Madison and presented him with a plaque of recognition and appreciation in a small ceremony.

Dave had many personal interests – music, travel, photography, birding, and genealogy among them as well as a wicked sense of humor - there was nothing he enjoyed more than a well-executed pun. 

He kept music front and center throughout his life, always singing in the church choirs as well as community arts chorales and enjoying attending many great performances. He had put down his bass after college graduation, but for his 80th birthday his son Brent rented an upright bass for his visits to NC and after 60 years of not playing, the two were able to play together many times with jazz and folk-music groups in NC. 

Traveling for pleasure on a minister’s budget, Dave would lead the family on their annual road trips, including driving the Alaska Highway in 1970’s with the family of four packed into a Chevy van outfitted with a custom-built travel deck his father built to fit – and doing it again in 1980! He had visited all the states and 87 countries and still had a dream to do a Finland-Russia tour for one last jaunt “someday.” 

He loved photography, always documenting his travels through slideshows and printed photo albums. His work team presentations were legendary - in his Bolivian volunteer locations, he was referred to as “the photographer one,” and after retirement he made it a point to produce prints for entry into the Door County Fair (one for every possible category!) each summer and claimed many of the “first” ribbons. He even sold several at a Door County art show.

Birding was also a passion, but in recent years scaled-back international travel made for a lack of opportunity to add to his total life list of 1543 species, since he’d already seen most everything native to the US with 504 species there.

His research into the extended Harsh family genealogy spanned decades – predating all the internet “ancestry” programs – sometimes choosing a destination for a family trip to coincide with a particularly interesting courthouse or county seat to go through their archives in person. He has documents and records going back 7 generations in the US.

The family would like to thank the surgeons and nurses in the neurosurgery department at University Hospital, Madison, who shared their skillful care and kindness with Dave and our family during his last few days.

The Memorial Service will be livestreamed on August 17th and can be viewed on the Bethany UMC's YouTube channel by navigating to this link on the day of the memorial service. https://youtu.be/uUsnxxTIOAE?si=DumBUmGL5ZUQASU_

As you all can tell, David will be sorely missed.

In lieu of flowers the family has listed 4 charities for giving,

Bethany United Methodist Church, 3910 Mineral Point Road, Madison, WI 53705

Cornell College, 600 First St. SW, Mount Vernon, IA 52314

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, 2121 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60201

Oakwood Foundation, Inc., 6209 Mineral Point Road, Madison, WI 53705