Harry Earl Sever was born on a Whitman County farm halfway between Colfax and Penawawa in 1897. He was the oldest of eight children, followed by six brothers and a sister. Sever graduated from the eighth grade in 1910 and his family moved to Albion, where he enrolled in Edwards College. His teachers at Edwards were Mr. and Mrs. W.H. Davis and their daughter, Lucile Davis Dana. Sever entered Washington State College in 1914 but dropped out in 1915 to begin farming. Two years later, in 1917, he married a girl from a near-by farm, Clara B. Moore. Things did not go well for the farm financially, and in 1926 he declared bankruptcy and moved to Pullman. From this time until 1942, Sever worked at various jobs from real estate broker to construction worker. He was a janitorial custodian for a museum in Colfax in 1932, and worked on the building of the Rock Island Dam near Wenatchee in 1939. He was a small-time land speculator, but he had no steady employment until hired by W.S.C. as an assistant athletic groundskeeper in 1942. Sever kept this job for twenty years and retired in 1962.
Sever operated a mobile home park called "Sever Sity" on the land presently (2004) occupied by Nendels Inn. The Severs sold the site to the motel developers in 1965.
Sever was a member of the Pullman Toastmasters, Chamber of Commerce, and Pullman Senior Citizens. He was outspoken in his political opinions and frequently contributed letters to regional newspapers. Writing was his hobby, and the culmination of his writing efforts was a novel entitled
The Severs had three sons and a daughter. The oldest son, Harry E. Sever, Jr. was killed in combat in 1943 in Italy. Richard, Glen and Velma still live in the Northwest. Some papers of Velma Sever and memoirs of his mother Myrtle are included in this collection.
Harry Sever died on November 9, 1976, after a brief illness.
Harry Sever's papers consist of correspondence from 1931 through 1975, business papers, political pamphlets, letters to the editors of various newspapers, and assorted creative writings, including his published novel, Dam-mania. Included in Sever's collection are some papers of his daughter, Velma, primarily high school and college assignments, and a fragment of the memoir of his mother, Myrtle Sever.
The papers are arranged in eight series; the first is biography and autobiography; the second, correspondence, is arranged in one chronological sequence, as are the business papers (third) and political pamphlets (fourth). The fifth series, his writings, is divided into prose, poetry and speeches. The sixth series consists of newspaper articles, letters to the editor, and reprints. The seventh series includes the papers of Velma Sever which are arranged in chronological order and a memoir by Myrtle Sever. The final series includes oversized material such as maps.
This collection is open for research use.
[Item Description]. Cage 372, Harry E. Sever Papers. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The papers of Harry E. Sever were donated to the Washington State University Library in 1976 (76-8) by Harry E. Sever.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.