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Consult repository for information
Harry Lattimore Collection, MSS 06-54, Virginia Room, Fairfax County Public Library
Gift of Fairfax County History Commission, May 2007
Chris Barbuschak, May 2017
EAD generated by Ross Landis, 2024
Harry McLaurine Lattimore was born on February 22, 1926 in Waco, Texas to Felix and Harriet Davis Lattimore. The family later moved to Marlow, Oklahoma where he graduated from Marlow High School in 1944. On June 8, 1944, Harry enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He served in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in Italy where he was wounded and received two Purple Hearts.
After the war, he graduated from Baylor University, where his grandfather, John C. Lattimore, served as President. Harry became the Director of the Hollis, Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce and later worked at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
In 1969, he moved to Fairfax County, Virginia and began a career with Fairfax County Public Library. He first worked at Centreville Library, then Patrick Henry Library, and later transferred to Sherwood Library. While at Sherwood, Harry drove one of the county’s three Bookmobiles around the Lorton area. In 1981, he opened the first Lorton Library in the Williamsburg Square Shopping Center and served as the library’s branch manager until his retirement in 1988.
After retiring, he worked for Davis Industries of Lorton and moved to King George County, Virginia. During his retirement he founded the Lorton Heritage Society, served as Co-Chair of the Lorton Task Force, became a Charter Member of the Federation of Lorton Communities, and volunteered as an adviser for the Fairfax County History Commission.
Harry Lattimore died on August 21, 2004 at Inova Fairfax Hospital after the result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident during a short trip to visit distant cousins he had just located through genealogy research.
The Harry M. Lattimore Collection spans the years 1875-1946 and contains a school census, a leather pouch containing World War II Army discharge papers, photographs, correspondence, a penmanship workbook containing handwritten statements, and a book. The 1875 school census is a list of male and female students (and their parents) who attended school in the Mount Vernon Magisterial District of Fairfax County, Virginia. Also included in this collection is Lattimore’s WWII Discharge Service Record contained in a leather pouch. Photographs removed from the pouch and housed in a separate folder include a portrait of Harry Lattimore, scenes from Bagni di Lucca, Italy where Lattimore’s unit stayed for almost a month in January 1945, as well as a group picture of his unit depicting identified soldiers Marvin Deeker, Axsell Sorenson, Ben Lewonski, Bill Luitirk(?), Alvin Weldon, Norris Williams, Normon Worrad, Bob Cooney, Tony Polidivo(?), Harry Dunkleberger, Dolly Beckhardt, and Robert Applegate. A book in this collection, “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” was inscribed by Lattimore’s grandfather, John C. Lattimore to his wife Lucy C. Edens in 1887.
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