Yellow jacket is Grandma Dee and her very close sister, Jean
By Kathy Hanks - The Hutchinson News - khanks@hutchnews.com
All her married life, Deloras Harkness brought meals to her family working in the fields.It was just before noon on Tuesday when the Scott County farmwife was heading to the milo field with sandwiches and milkshakes. On a road she traveled for more than 50 years, just one-quarter mile from home, Deloras, 76, didn't see the other vehicle through the blinding dust from truck traffic. The two collided."I went with her thousands of times," said her sister, Verene Dearden, Garden City. "She was always careful."Harkness' sister said the two were raised in a close-knit family of 14 children on a Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota. Some of Deloras' domestic skills were gleaned during high school, when she boarded with a Scott City farmer and banker, Henry Parkinson, and his family. Keeping house and cooking allowed her to earn money to attend school.Soon after graduating in 1949, she married Robert Harkness, and together they farmed by Dry Lake, in Scott County. "Her fondest dream was being a wife," Dearden said. "She learned to be a farmwife through Bob."The couple raised three children, Mike of Scott City, Kenton of Garden City, and Deb Gruver of Scott City. She also had 10 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren. "She loved being a farmwife, and made sure the men had food," Dearden said. "She had a beautiful home and they always had the big family meals there during the holidays." Daughter Deb Gruver said her mother hung at least 40 Christmas stockings every year. So many, Bob Harkness had to create a special bar and chains to hold them."Mom taught us to be thoughtful, kind and respectful," Gruver said. "She was a very unselfish person, the last to sit down at every meal." In his grief, Kenton Harkness was cherishing the things his mother taught him. "She was Christ-like," he said. "She liked everyone, knew no strangers, was not racist and embraced everybody."Known for her sewing skills, every one of her 10 grandchildren received a homemade quilt when they graduated from high school. Deloras passed along her sewing talent to her daughter."I remember spending hours with Mom in the sewing room," Deb Gruver said. "We'd talk and giggle." Her sons recalled their mother as a willing gopher on the farm."She'd run to town for parts," Kenton Harkness said. "She moved pickups from one field to another at the drop of a hat."But that's not all; she even vacuumed the inside of the tractors and combines, and kept the windshields clean on the vehicles. That was one way she made sure everyone was safe.
