A death of a friend is not easy to assimilate. Memories and moments of bygone mutuality recur. Some good. Some not so good. Most in between. Each blends into a warm mash of wistful, distasteful finality.
This is written to remember my friend, the wonderful Harold Lee Whitfield, Esq., of Kirkwood, Missouri, of whose death I have learned just today, December 10, 2016. He died in October 2016. I learned of his death from the "Journal of the Missouri Bar," that I received in today's mail. Harold was a long-time member of the AME Church. He served on its Judicial Council, its Economic Development Fund. He was also a great Sunday School teacher at Olive Chapel AME Church, Kirkwood, Missouri, that I often attended whenever I returned home to St. Louis to visit. He was also a member of the Mound City Bar Association, the black bar association of St. Louis. He practiced law for 48 years!!
Frankly, I am astounded that I had heard nothing of his death until today, Zilche! Surely, a more fitting epitaph than this curious silence would merit such a man as he, who was one of the first black lawyers to hail from St. Louis County, Missouri, if he was not first!
He was also most helpful to me, professionally and personally. I grieve his passing greatly. I also note the sad shameful lessons it leaves about communication bottlenecks and deficiencies that require swift remediation among black lawyers in Missouri and in the AME church also.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
HAROLD LEE WHITFIELD
REMEMBERING HAROLD LEE WHITFIELD 
A death of a friend is not easy to assimilate. Memories and moments of bygone mutuality recur. Some good. Some not so good. Most in between. Each blends into a warm mash of wistful, distasteful finality.
This is written to remember my friend, the wonderful Harold Lee Whitfield, Esq., of Kirkwood, Missouri, of whose death I have learned just today, December 10, 2016. He died in October 2016. I learned of his death from the "Journal of the Missouri Bar," that I received in today's mail. Harold was a long-time member of the AME Church. He served on its Judicial Council, its Economic Development Fund. He was also a great Sunday School teacher at Olive Chapel AME Church, Kirkwood, Missouri, that I often attended whenever I returned home to St. Louis to visit. He was also a member of the Mound City Bar Association, the black bar association of St. Louis. He practiced law for 48 years!!
Frankly, I am astounded that I had heard nothing of his death until today, Zilche! Surely, a more fitting epitaph than this curious silence would merit such a man as he, who was one of the first black lawyers to hail from St. Louis County, Missouri, if he was not first!
He was also most helpful to me, professionally and personally. I grieve his passing greatly. I also note the sad shameful lessons it leaves about communication bottlenecks and deficiencies that require swift remediation among black lawyers in Missouri and in the AME church also.
A death of a friend is not easy to assimilate. Memories and moments of bygone mutuality recur. Some good. Some not so good. Most in between. Each blends into a warm mash of wistful, distasteful finality.
This is written to remember my friend, the wonderful Harold Lee Whitfield, Esq., of Kirkwood, Missouri, of whose death I have learned just today, December 10, 2016. He died in October 2016. I learned of his death from the "Journal of the Missouri Bar," that I received in today's mail. Harold was a long-time member of the AME Church. He served on its Judicial Council, its Economic Development Fund. He was also a great Sunday School teacher at Olive Chapel AME Church, Kirkwood, Missouri, that I often attended whenever I returned home to St. Louis to visit. He was also a member of the Mound City Bar Association, the black bar association of St. Louis. He practiced law for 48 years!!
Frankly, I am astounded that I had heard nothing of his death until today, Zilche! Surely, a more fitting epitaph than this curious silence would merit such a man as he, who was one of the first black lawyers to hail from St. Louis County, Missouri, if he was not first!
He was also most helpful to me, professionally and personally. I grieve his passing greatly. I also note the sad shameful lessons it leaves about communication bottlenecks and deficiencies that require swift remediation among black lawyers in Missouri and in the AME church also.